FAQ:
- How much will this cost? $4.99 for the core co-pilot app, $4.99 for the GPWS warning system, $4.99 for the voice commands.
- Is this part of Infinite Flight or a separate app? It’s a separate app, not affiliated with Flying Dev Studios or Infinite Flight, but it is an add-on to Infinite Flight.
- When will this come out? Update Dec 10 It’s been submitted to Apple! Just a few more days and it should be available!
- Will there be an Android version? Not at the start. No promises for afterward, but I know some of you REALLY want one.
- What are the system requirements? iOS 10, latest version of Infinite Flight
- Which voice commands will be supported? The following ones:
- Gear up / gear down
- Flaps 15 degrees / Flaps 3 / Flaps 20 percent (based on aircraft you are in)
- Set heading 1-4-5
- Set speed 2-5-0
- Set altitude 9 thousand 5 hundred
- Set flight level 2-2-0 (for > 10k feet)
- Lock vertical speed
- Set vertical speed minus 2 thousand 5 hundred
- Beacons on / off
- Landing lights on / off
- Strobes on / off
- Navigational lights on / off
- My plane / my airplane (deactivate auto-pilot)
(original post from way back when)
Hey guys, check out this video of an iPhone/iPad app I’m tinkering around with in my free time:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BL07zwog8qO
Basically it’s a copilot who can play sound bites (or theoretically set autopilot settings) based on the situation you’re in. So I made one who calls out “v1” and “rotate” (you have to manually set beforehand at which speed he should call it out). He also warns you if you’re about to go over speed (taxi or 250knots < 10k feet). What’s nice is on iPad it works as an app you can start from the iOS multitasking sidebar.
I kind of like it, what do you all think? Any ideas how I could make this more useful? Flight school? Other callouts? Speech recognition?
Update (Monday)
Latest proof of concept.
Update (Tuesday)
So uh anyways…I have speech recognition working. 😳 That was way easier than i expected!
You can say “Gear Up” and the co-pilot will respond by pulling the gear up and confirming with “Gear up.” “Flaps Down” works as well.
Soon “Set Heading 2 7 0” (or whatever) will, too! So fun! 😝
Update (Wednesday)
I’ve added V2, “sink rate”, and “pull up”. The voice command “Set Heading 2-5-0” now works as well! Quite fun to see the plane magically start banking after that one. ;-)
So other than voice commands “Flaps Up/Down”, “Gear Up/Down”, and “Set Heading”, what kinds of voice commands do you guys think I should add?
Also will be working on additional GPWS warnings like “Terrain!”, “Too Low, Gear”, etc. Found an actual GPWS manual I will be working from: https://aerocontent.honeywell.com/aero/common/documents/Mk_VI_VIII_EGPWS.pdf
Update (Thursday)
Made another little video in my lunch break, showing off the latest features. Enjoy!
Update (a couple weeks later)
Been polishing the app and fixing bugs and now have the app’s UI pretty much figured out, here’s a quick video:
November 18 Update
OK, so, it’s been a while, here’s the latest!
- The app name will be In-Flight Assistant. My goal is to make it an absolute must-buy add-on to Infinite Flight.
- After seeing the network difficulties (which are often simply router issues in diguise) in Nicolas’ awesome app IF-Cockpit that can occur when you’re in a “multiple device” situation (i.e. IF running on iPad, IF-A running on iPhone), I’ve decided to simplify and not support that scenario since it’s really not needed for this app anyways. IF-A will run in the background on the same device as IF. It works great. On iPad you can configure it via the multitasking sidebar on newer devices, otherwise as an app in the background, on iPhone you can configure it as an app in the background.
- Here’s a latest screenshot
- Here’s the app icon (didn’t really know what to do, but thought this at least was a bit reminiscent of a co-pilot).
- Here are the features I’ll be supporting at launch:
- Co-pilot callouts (included in the core app)
- “V1”
- “V2”
- “Rotate”
- “Positive Rate”
- “Let’s watch our speed, captain” warning when taxiing too fast / airspeed > 250kts at <10k feet
- “Gear up/down”
- “Flaps at XXX degrees” / “Flaps Final” etc., based on aircraft type
- Fully-featured GPWS system based on the Honeywell MK VI with all 6 modes fully supported, including warning areas, turboprop alternative settings (automatically detected whether the aircraft is a turboprop), Steep Approach Bias and Flap Override settings etc. This will be available as an in-app purchase. It was A LOT OF WORK.
- “GLIDESLOPE” both quiet and loud, depending on how low you are
- “SINKRATE”
- “PULL UP! PULL UP!”
- “TERRAIN! TERRAIN!”
- “DON’T SINK”
- “TOO LOW, TERRAIN”
- “TOO LOW, GEAR”
- “TOO LOW, FLAPS”
- “APPROACHING MINIMUMS”
- “MINIMUMS” for Airbus, or “MINIMUMS, MINIMUMS” for Boeing / other aircraft
- “BANK ANGLE” based on aircraft type, altitude, speed, autopilot setting, etc.
- “RETARD, RETARD” when landing in an Airbus
- Autopilot disconnect sound
- Voice Commands, available as an in-app purchase (you will want to use a headset for this, Infinite Flight is just too loud and the built-in mic isn’t good enough for it to recognize your commands).
- Gear up /down
- Flaps XXX degrees, Flaps 3, Flaps Final, etc., based on aircraft type
- Set heading XXX
- Set speed XXX
- Set flight level XXX
- Beacons on/off
- Landing lights on/off
- Strobes on/off
- “My plane” (i.e. deactivate auto-pilot)
Coming later will (very likely) be Passenger Announcements as an in-app purchase.
I’m about 70% of the way there would be my current guesstimation. Thanks for all your guys’ support, this has been a blast and was completely unexpected when I showed off my little experiment a few weeks ago in my original post up top. :-)
P.S. I will likely do a small beta test before I release, just to see how it runs on other devices than the ones I have. Please don’t get offended if I don’t invite you to it, I’m not planning on having some month-long thing and it takes effort for each person I would add.