Page 1 of 3

Shared Cockpit

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 5:53 am
by wdhurley
Keith, has their been any progress in the shared cockpit issue? I talked with a few of the Digital Theme Park members last night who are very interested in PE but are understandably nervous about ATC. They are all very good "sim pilots" but have no experience with ATC. One mentioned the shared cockpit idea, and I had already read that as of now it is not supported. I think it would be a great resource of new pilots if we could tap into that.

Re: Shared Cockpit

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2012 8:46 am
by Keith Smith
It is planned but hasn't been started.

They should check out the pilot training program, http://training.pilotedge.net

Each flight has all the material required to fly successfully, including atc transcripts.

we are also working on cockpit video/audio for each flight.

For now, the 'first flight' video is a start.

Re: Shared Cockpit

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 11:25 am
by Keith Smith
And now it's done. I'll be announcing soon.

Re: Shared Cockpit

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:47 am
by bruce
Keith Smith wrote:And now it's done. I'll be announcing soon.
I think this is going to be of interest to a few people I know who may be nervous of going it alone or just want a bit of a confidence booster.

The question is, how soon is soon?

Re: Shared Cockpit

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 9:50 am
by Keith Smith
Now'ish...

1. set up your shared cockpit connection X-Plane (using the SmartCoPilot plugin) or FSX
2. 1st pilot should connect to PilotEdge with standard callsign, eg. N123AB
3. 2nd pilot should connect to PilotEdge with same callsign, but with a @ suffix, eg. N123AB@

Nobody will physically see N123AB@ (on the scope or out the window). N123AB@ will not be able to see N123AB sitting on top of them (that's a good thing).

Neither pilot will hear each other on the radio (by design), but they'll hear everything else. Either party can talk on the radio.

Edit: It's assumed that you'll be using a VOIP system such as Skype or Teamspeak to communicate with each other in real time throughout the flight, so you'll hear the other guy's calls on Skype or Teamspeak. That's why I suppress the audio from the other guy's calls, otherwise you'd hear it twice, once through your virtual intercom (skype/ts3) and then again through the PE radio.

I have no idea how FSX shared cockpit works, so feedback would be appreciated on the result for those that can try it out.

Re: Shared Cockpit

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 4:20 pm
by Marcus Becker
Just did a shared cockpit session with Harold R. using FSX and the default L45. Worked magnificently. Not being able to hear the transmissions from my copilot was solved by setting up our TeamSpeak to simply transmit with voice activation. It worked well enough. What a blast it was!

The way we set it up was to create a multiplayer session via a direct connect method and get both parties connected. We then opened the PE client and connected as Keith described above. Worked the first time without issue.

Re: Shared Cockpit

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 4:52 pm
by Keith Smith
Marcus, that's great to hear. it is assumed that you are talking on an open channel to the co pilot. if you are using ptt to talk to copilot, then you should add a second ptt to teamspeak using the same button that you use for PilotEdge.

Re: Shared Cockpit

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 7:00 pm
by Marcus Becker
We found it easiest to use voice activation in teamspeak. It worked quite well. FSX has a built in voice use but I didn't set it up properly. Maybe I will try again another time.

Re: Shared Cockpit

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:27 am
by Kim Ellis
Marcus, if you ever try it with a non-MS aircraft, specifically any PMDG aircraft, or hear of anyone trying it with a PMDG plane, I would greatly appreciate hearing the result.

Re: Shared Cockpit

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2014 10:37 am
by Marcus Becker
Kim, I tried the PMDG 747 and almost nothing crossed over. The only thing I could find that did work was the radios and flight controls. Light switches, flaps, CDU inputs, FMS, APU, all didn't work. I would say that particular aircraft is a no go for shared cockpits which is a shame. I'll keep trying out other aircraft I have to see how they sync up.