[EFB] Shared Cockpit

[pilotseyea350]

Aircraft Version

Development

Description

For the moment and as far as I know, YourControls is the only software that allows shared cockpit flight.

As the software is open source, maybe we could implement it on the EFB or the FMS as Aerosoft did back in the days with their Airbus Professional products.

As of YourControls V2.7.13, the software can/is used with Simbridge. If the implementation is not possible, we could create and update our own .yaml files to be used with YourControls, with the A32NX and the future A380X.

References (optional)

https://github.com/Sequal32/yourcontrols/releases

Additional info (optional)

No response

Discord Username (optional)

piloteyesa350

[JasonO99]

Could you explain what you would see in the EFB to facilitate YourControls?

Mostly, integration with third party applications and the A32NX is done through 'communication' between the separate applications or services, or the reading/setting of certain variables (Navigraph, Simbrief, GSX, Hoppie, as some examples). However, the third party service itself remains very much an independent thing to the A32NX. From your suggestion that YourControls is open source, is the YourControls system itself could be embedded into the aircraft itself.

I can't see that it would be worth the time to do this, as it would not add any functionality. It would then be more code for the developers to self-maintain, update with any changes made to YourControls. The functionality would remain the same. YourControls works through reading and setting of various events and variables through SimConnect, and often the limitations of it are with SimConnect. Tailhook is usually pretty good at keeping profiles for common aircraft like the A32NX up-to-date, with the FBW developers probably not being aware or knowledgable enough on how YourControls works to take on updating our own profile (they already have the challenge of keeping documentation up-to-date with any changes).

YourControls doesn't have any means of managing the application externally, so the EFB would not be able to manage any of the YourControls functionality within it and would still need to be done via the software itself.

[alepouna]

Theoretically speaking, parts of the functionality can be integrated into the plane and/or Simbridge, but that's out of scope from our aircraft and since a solution already exists that works great too, there isn't any need to add this functionality our selves.

[pilotseyea350]

Could you explain what you would see in the EFB to facilitate YourControls?

Mostly, integration with third party applications and the A32NX is done through 'communication' between the separate applications or services, or the reading/setting of certain variables (Navigraph, Simbrief, GSX, Hoppie, as some examples). However, the third party service itself remains very much an independent thing to the A32NX. From your suggestion that YourControls is open source, is the YourControls system itself could be embedded into the aircraft itself.

I can't see that it would be worth the time to do this, as it would not add any functionality. It would then be more code for the developers to self-maintain, update with any changes made to YourControls. The functionality would remain the same. YourControls works through reading and setting of various events and variables through SimConnect, and often the limitations of it are with SimConnect. Tailhook is usually pretty good at keeping profiles for common aircraft like the A32NX up-to-date, with the FBW developers probably not being aware or knowledgable enough on how YourControls works to take on updating our own profile (they already have the challenge of keeping documentation up-to-date with any changes).

YourControls doesn't have any means of managing the application externally, so the EFB would not be able to manage any of the YourControls functionality within it and would still need to be done via the software itself.

I thought that if we could implement something like YourControls (or YourControls) in the EFB, we could remove some barriers, if not all the barriers, between the users like the EFB and Fuel Sync, NavData Sync, the MCDU Sync and the guard switches sync.

Using YourControls could be the start of the development of a piece of software that would help FBW Users share their cockpit without having to download an external software and a profile as the software could use simbridge.

I do not know how coding works so it may be very abstract but the way that I see this would work is

Aircraft Host => Sends System Status to Simbridge (e.g. switch status, fuel, doors, efb, etc...) => Simbridge Sends System status to Aircraft Guest

And if we find a way to send data like thrust, pitch, roll, yaw, etc ... from one aircraft to another, we, in theory wouldn't have to transmit date like speed, altitude, AOA and what not.