Virtual Navigator Panel

[cadillac]

Just a thought.

While I am in the process of flying from Gander to Shannon in the beautiful Boeing 377 from A2A, I begin thinking. What if you made a gauge, that told you what your wind drift was, what heading you should keep to hit your next VOR and how soon, based on current speed.

I know that is a GPS...
But in the 40's and 50's they did not have that, they had a navigator. A bloke sitting behind the pilots. He, using only maps, a sextant, navaids, a stopwatch and maths, did all the calculations for navigation. He told the pilots if they were on course, what the hdg corrections should be based on wind conditions.

I FSX we have a moving map, and some "cheats" to tell us this, but wouldn't it be nice to have a gauge that in text format gave you the information that the Navigator would have provided back in the days?

My idea is that the gauge could collect information from within FSX, such as:
- Wind Direction and Speed
- Indicated Speed
- Altitude
- Temperature
- Flight Plan (in order to know the next waypoint and optionally the one after that)

Through some calculations the gauge could then provide the data needed. As an example like this:

"Captain, we are approaching Moncton (YQM) VOR, the hdg for Grindstone (YGR) VOR is 068° and we should arrive in about 27 min. Then we are going to Stephenville (YJT) VOR."

"Captain, we are approaching Grindstone (YGR) VOR, the hdg for Stephenville (YJT) VOR is 074° and we should arrive in about 28 min........

These messages could be presenting themselves about 2-3 minutes prior to the VOR, or NDB if that is used.


Similarly there could be a button to switch to Atlantic/Pacific tracking. When pressed the navigator would present a report every 30-60 minutes (whatever is realistic). The report could look something like this:

"Captain, we are currently about 4 hours and 25 minutes from Shannon (SHA) VOR, the heading should be 077°, we have about 1300NM to go"


In time these reports could even be audio.


So, what does the gauge gurus think? Is this possible? Could it be done as a "simple" XML gauge or does it require more?

I am myself a complete noob, but I would be interested in learning to do this.

Let me know if you think this is a good idea. If you would be interested in making it, possibly with as much help from me as I can give. Or let me know in the event that something like this already exists.