X-Plane Aircraft Information Plugin

About

The Aircraft Information (ACInfo) plugin aims to make it easy to identify the name and type of an X-Plane aircraft for other applications and plugins by providing custom datarefs that encode this information.

DataRefs

ACInfo provides the following DataRefs:

• vscl/sim/aircraft/name: the aircraft name as a string (char *).
• vscl/sim/aircraft/type: the aircraft type as an int64_t bitmask.

These can be requested using the X-Plane SDK or the new DREF UDP interface.

Types

Types are a generic representation of what an aircraft is. They include powerplant type and aircraft role. Since these can be combined, types are represented as a bitmask, so e.g. a jet fighter would be represented as JET ^ FIGHTER. Refer to the lua/acinfo.lua script for the most up-to-date type definitions.

Algorithms

(Well, they're sort of algorithms...) ACInfo uses the aircraft's ICAO name (sim/aircraft/view/acf_ICAO) if available as the aircraft name. If this is known to be empty or bad, the aircraft's filename is used. In some cases, this is then mapped to a custom name.

To determine engine type, the plugin looks at engine DataRefs specific to piston-engined aircraft and sees if they are nonzero. If prop RPM and manifold pressure are both nonzero, the aircraft is determined to be piston-engined, and if prop RPM only is nonzero, the aircraft is a turboprop. Otherwise, it is considered a jet (inclusive of turbojets and turbofans). For the aircraft role, the aircraft's path is iterated over to find the common X-Plane subdirectories, which are then mapped to a type integer. In certain cases this is overriden with known types. The Lua script assumes the path convention used in the VSCL for additional aircraft (e.g. from X-Plane.org); you will likely need to customize this for your X-Plane deployment.

Requirements

ACInfo implements most of its core logic in the Lua programming language. Starting with X-Plane 10.20, Lua is embedded into X-Plane and can be used to script the simulator. ACInfo uses the FlyWithLua plugin to provide a convenient API to interact with X-Plane. Accordingly, FlyWithLua must be installed for X-Plane.

For the C plugin, the X-Plane SDK is required. The SDK is included as a submodule with the path ext/sdk, and can be instantiated with

git submodule update --init

which will initialize and update all of the submodules.

Additionally, libbsd is required as the plugin makes use of strlcpy(3).

Building the C Plugin

ACInfo uses CMake as its build system and is designed for an out-of-source build.

To build the plugin, enter the following commands in the project root directory:

mkdir build && pushd build
cmake ..
make
popd

which will output the plugin to lib/libacinfo.so. This file will be symlinked to 64/lin.xpl for use as an X-Plane "fat plugin".

Installing the Plugin

C Plugin

Place the plugin into the Resources/plugins directory of your X-Plane installation with the following structure:

acinfo/
├── 64
│   └── lin.xpl
└── lib
    └── libacinfo.so

Lua Scripts

To install the Lua script(s), place them into the Scripts directory of the main FlyWithLua plugin directory.

License

See the LICENSE.md file for license and copyright information.