The addition of Avidyne IFD 540/550 is great. There are a lot of potential for retrofitting of older aircraft like we see from Black Square or A2A, just to name 2.
According to the developer from Black Square, at the moment, the IFD540/500 doesn’t support hotsawping. To quote Black Sqaure:
In order to add the IFD’s, and maintain all the existing hot-swappable configurations, some of my aircraft would end up with 32 variations in the aircraft selection menu. I consider hot-swapping to be a major feature of my aircraft, so I’m obviously disappointed to hear this, but I feel worse that it artificially limits the options that I am able to supply to my users.
Since the IFD avionics are really great, it would be such a shame to limit them to only a few aircraft. I think it’s kinda sad to limit them in such a way. Therefore, I’ve decided to create this Topic on the Wishlist, in the hopes that WT will update the IFD to be hotsawable, allowing us to enjoy them on a much wider variety of aircraft.
There was also a discussion on the WT discord about it. Long story short WT are sticking to their guns and insisting devs use the variant system. I do though sense that some acknowledgement that the variant system and its user friendliness etc is flawed has now been made. I sense improvements to the variant system will be explored before providing a hacky solution to enable hot swapping.
Do we really need hot swapping at all. After all why would you need or want to change avionics mid flight. If you could choose what avionics were loaded in a much easier and friendly way via the sim UI then personally I think that would suffice. I think this is probably where this is heading.
I can think of a few reasons - I’ve done it. Sometimes you want to try an approach with a whole different setup but you don’t want to jump out and back into the flight.
Other reasons: hot-swapping while in the plane allows you to instantly see the new configuration. Otherwise, I’d have to select the variant, start the flight, back out, select a new variant, start the flight, etc. Might not be a big deal when there are 2-3 variants, but when there’s 8+ combinations, that’s not viable. Again, a lot of that comes back to the clunky selection UI.
There actually needs to be more options for panel config. Like the ability to move steam gauges (especially ancillary ones) and radios/GPS units around, many of which are aftermarket in the used GA world. This is what gives a panel character and unique, owned identity. Also the ability to cover or fail an instrument for partial-panel practice. There would have to be a “live” interaction for any of that.
The variant system certainly needs improvement. I got the FSW Lancair Legacy, which has 16 variants, 8 of which are redundant as I don’t use the PMS 750, and each has really long scrolling labels. You cannot tell from the thumbnail what you are picking so you have to read the text.
If the text is the important part, why in the name of all that is holy is that not a simple text list? The thumbnails are entirely pointless!
Their UI designers need to look at this as it’s just terrible.
Agreed. Having it sorted in a logical order too should be the logical way to display the variants. This is yet again another reason why console UI’s don’t work on PC.
From what I’ve heard hot swapping is going the way of the dodo in favour of using the variants. If you have a viable after first load use case I’d suggest making that case to WT because they are against it due to technical reasons. Personally I like using all the different avionics options we have but I’ve never felt the need to suddenly change mid flight. If you think about the realism angle then if you wanted a different panel you would jump in a different aircraft. I think this is what the variants are meant to cover. I get the UI for it is totally inappropriate and if that’s the way things go then the way we use that and the manner in which the options are displayed and then chosen needs a drastic improvement.
I’ve made my case in the threads mentioned here. The Black Square Baron would have 18 variants based on possible avionics configurations alone. If the sim chooses to stick with the current UI selection method for things like that, they’re adding to their own issues.
I would jump in a different aircraft if it wasn’t such a clunky process. Also, it’s a sim, it’s made to do unrealistic things - flexibility to practice things is one of the biggest advantages of sims. And if it were possible to hot swap in the air to practice approaches with different panel configurations IRL, I would. Who wants to burn another .5 doing that?
I hear you on the flexibility point. That’s totally valid. I was making exactly the same point about units of measure and autopilots earlier in another thread.
That’s the other point of swapping - not necessarily the hot aspect, but many gauges and radio rack spaces have standard dimensions. Theoretically, we should be able to move these around and swap any sim-standard gauge or radio of the same dimension (or add blanks). And also open it up to third party gauges designated as such.
I’m sure there’s a host of under-the-hood reasons that complicate this, especially when they’re connected to other instruments. But at the end of the day the output signals a nav set produces and any conversions to get it to correctly display on a gauge are part and parcel of the avionics install world.
That’s not strictly true across the board. Some equipment is just plain and simple not compatible with some others. You need to understand what works with what and all the signals involved when doing avionics upgrades. Different standards and era’s of equipment can make this a challenge.
Sheesh, as always, I should have put a disclaimer that no, not everything is compatible irl - I forget that’s not widely understood. There is plenty of stuff that is and that’s what I’m talking about. More to the point, the sim should be far more capable of making just about any visual representation of, say, a CDI work because it’s not working with specific voltages and pinouts.
I really hate making this kind of post, but reading the WT’s reasons for not doing the hotswap is making me sad.
On one hand, I get it. But everything in this sim is always close to greatness. Always a caveat. Always a workaround needed. Always a limitation. Always something.
We have online planner which is amazing… …but it misses so many little airports because it uses some ICAO database or whatever instead of importing airports from the sim, like littlenavmap does.
We can calculate fuel in it as well… …but the performance data is still missing for most aircraft year and a half after release.
We have a great EFB… …but it’s somewhat useless for VFR as the maps are super rudimentary and show nothing VFR pilot needs.
We have the best Garmin simulation ever… …but the screens are cluttered with million heliports in fixed wings and we can’t disable them.
Now we’re getting Avidyne which seems just as amazing… …but suddenly it’s not hot-swappable.
I get the thing with variants, but the UI is a mess and some planes like A2A with dozen of configurable combinations would need to have SO MANY of them. Scrolling a horizontal menu of million thumbnails just to find a specific avionic configuration sounds like my personal hell.
I would agree with that. An explanation of “We don’t need to support hot swapping of GPS because our UI is so streamlined, easy to use, and presented well” would be an utter lie.
If we can’t have a supported method for hot swapping, at least fix the UI so that it is more easily navigable for those of us with a monitor, mouse and keyboard.
I don’t think it’s what they said directly (maybe its implied). They mentioned that making it hot swappable is complex due to in-memory state that they need to maintain (from beginning of the flight to the end). And rebuilding that state mid-session is complex. At least that’s what I got from their response.
I actually find the discussion a bit odd. Users have a simple wish, be able to use the IFD 5xx in Black Square aircraft(s). Black Square mention the MSFS UI limitations, and WT mentions the technical complexity. Why are users mediating between the two companies in each their own forums, instead of the companies finding a solution/compromise directly.
For me the priorities should be (from highest to lowest):
IFD in Black Square planes with hot swapping.
IFD in Black Square planes without hot swapping with annoying variant selection process.
Not having the option to use IFD in Black Square at all – current state
I’ll add something else, besides the awful UI, in the case against the variant system. If you set up custom camera angles, you have to do it for all variants. A dozen different avionics options? Set up camera angles times a dozen.
Flying the Kodiak 100 right now, with its 25 different variants, and cursing the sky.
I completely agree. As an alternative for PC users, with a bit of learning curve, you can set camera views in SPAD.next and apply them to all variants (as long as there’s not a major structural/visual difference).
