Tregarth
I don't know about you, but the HUD is, to me, the most important instrument in the cockpit. It is what I spend most of my flight looking at, and when you compare it to real videos of real HUDs, its pretty ugly. HUD collimation will be amazing, it will give the HUD a projected look instead of a 'right in your face' kind of look. That way, it will work as the real HUD. The human eye can focus on close objects, or far, but not both at once. When the HUD is "right there" and in your cockpit (the actual HUD in the Sludge F/A-18 is mounted on the actual HUD glass), you have to focus on your instruments, and then on the outside view. That is one of the reasons HUDs were implemented after several Phantom crashes behind the boat.
Here is a good link that explains a fair amount about HUDs. HUD collimation also will fix the TiR 6DOF issue that the HUD gets uncorrelated.
Now, here are even MORE benefits. We will need to completely re-animate every switch in the cockpit, because when we decompile, we loose animation. Now, once that is done, and the modeler has the source files to the cockpit, we can do whatever we darn please with the cockpit, as long as we don't charge money for it. We can fix the Hook Bypass switch, we can fix the oversized HUD frame/AoA indicator misplacement, we can integrate the HUD controls to the VC (below the UFC), or any other issues we see present (such as throttles not be able to go below IDLE to shut off the fuel flow). Now, that is going far beyond the original design, and we need to keep it just to the collimation at this point, but I'm saying thats what we unlock when we progress on this.
JR/Sludge
C++ seems to be an extremely powerful tool, and its what the default F/A-18 avionics were coded in, not XML. That being said, MS has more experience in this then us, and probably knows better. If anyone wants to give C++ a go, feel free. I'm trying to, but I don't have any decent online courses to learn from.
Now, on a total side note that I don't really think deserves its own thread but would be a nice upgrade/fix
JR, is there any possibility that you can do a few tweaks to the HUD to make it a T-45 HUD? The HUD is based off of the F/A-18 it seems a fair amount, and also the biggest difference that led me to making this post is that the T-45s optimal AoA for landing is 17 units. A whopping 17 units.
Source(s):
(see first comment)
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=20902 (search for downwind)
(As soon as he touches down, you can see his AoA drops, but it started at a number above 12, and he was within 2 units of optimal AoA on touchdown)