Every switch has consequences
Electrics, hydraulics, fuel, bleed air: Fly-K models the systems together with their dependencies. A switch doesn't just change a light – it changes everything that depends on it, failures included.
A320 systems and displays for your home cockpit.
Fly-K runs the logic behind every switch and draws the displays to match – on one Windows PC or spread across as many machines as your cockpit needs. Built by pilots who fly the A320.
In development
The waitlist hears first when it's ready.
The displays are placeholders – real screenshots will follow.
What happens between the switch and the display.
Fly-K is Windows software for your home cockpit. It simulates the A320's systems – from the electrics to the warning logic – and draws the cockpit displays to match.
You build the cockpit; Fly-K supplies what goes on inside the aircraft. Flip a switch, and Fly-K works out what would happen in the real aircraft and shows it on the displays.
Fly-K is still in development. This page describes what we are building right now.
Displays that show the actual state
PFD, ND, both ECAM displays, MCDU and ISIS. They show what the logic is working out at that very moment – in normal operation and when something fails.
One host, as many clients as you need
One machine runs all the logic as the host; the clients on your network draw the displays. Spread your cockpit across several PCs – or start with just one.
Every display – from the PFD to the last SD page.
Fly-K draws the A320's displays: the two large ones in front of each seat, the ECAM in the centre with all of its system pages, plus the MCDU and the ISIS. Here is what each one shows and what you need it for.
The images are placeholders. Real screenshots from Fly-K will follow.
Primary displays
The two large displays in front of each seat: one for flying, one for navigating.
Placeholder PFDPrimary Flight Display
Attitude, speed, altitude, vertical speed and heading at a glance. The top line tells you what the autopilot and autothrust are doing. When you fly, this is where your eyes are most of the time.
Placeholder NDNavigation Display
Your route with waypoints and navaids as a map, in several modes and ranges. It shows where you are, where you're going and where the wind is coming from.
ECAM
The two displays in the centre monitor the aircraft. Engines and messages on top, and below them whichever system matters right now.
Placeholder E/WDEngine/Warning Display
On top, the key engine readings, fuel on board and the flap position. Below, what the aircraft has to tell you: warnings, cautions and the actions to work through.
SDSystem Display
The lower ECAM display always shows one of 13 pages. You call them up on the ECAM control panel – or the aircraft brings up the right one by itself as soon as a system needs your attention.
Placeholder ENGEngines
Oil pressure, oil temperature, vibration and fuel used for each engine.
Placeholder BLEEDBleed air
Bleed air from the engines and the APU: valves, pressures and temperatures.
Placeholder PRESSCabin pressure
Cabin altitude, differential pressure and the position of the outflow valve.
Placeholder ELECElectrical
Generators, batteries and buses – and which one is feeding which.
Placeholder HYDHydraulics
The three systems – green, blue and yellow – with pumps, pressure and fluid level.
Placeholder FUELFuel
How much fuel is in which tank, and the pumps and valves it flows through.
Placeholder APUAuxiliary power unit
APU speed and exhaust temperature, plus its generator and its bleed air.
Placeholder CONDAir conditioning
Temperatures in the cockpit, cabin and cargo hold – and of the air flowing in.
Placeholder DOORDoors and oxygen
Which doors and hatches are open, plus the cockpit oxygen supply.
Placeholder WHEELLanding gear and brakes
Gear position, brake temperatures and nose wheel steering.
Placeholder F/CTLFlight controls
Every control surface and its position – and which computers and hydraulic systems move it.
Placeholder STSStatus
Where things stand after a failure: what is inoperative and what that means for approach and landing.
Placeholder CRUISECruise
Comes up by itself in cruise: fuel used, oil, vibration, cabin pressure and temperatures.
More
The unit you enter the flight plan on, and the standby instrument.
Placeholder MCDUMultipurpose Control and Display Unit
Screen and keyboard for the flight management system. This is where you enter the route, weights and performance data, and keep an eye on the flight plan.
Placeholder ISISIntegrated Standby Instrument System
The independent standby instrument. It keeps showing attitude, speed and altitude if the large displays fail.
Real logic, not a mock-up.
Wiring a lamp to a switch is easy. In the aircraft, though, that lamp is lit because a system is in a particular state. Fly-K works out that state: switches, dependencies and failures behave as they do in the real aircraft – and the displays show the consequences.
An example: generator 1 fails
In normal operation, each engine generator feeds its own half of the electrical network. Make generator 1 fail and follow what the logic does with it.
Normal operationFailure active – press again to reset
GEN 1
FAULTOFF
GEN 2
FAULTOFF
MASTERCAUT
SD
The generator fails
Generator 1 stops delivering power. On the overhead panel, FAULT lights up in the GEN 1 pushbutton.
The network reconfigures
AC BUS 1 doesn't go dark: the tie between the two sides closes by itself, and generator 2 now feeds both buses. To ease its load, part of the galley is shed.
ECAM speaks up
Master caution comes on, a chime sounds, and the E/WD shows ELEC GEN 1 FAULT in amber – along with the actions to work through.
The SD shows the new state
The lower ECAM display brings up the ELEC page by itself: GEN 1 in amber, both buses fed by generator 2.
None of this is a script being played back. Fly-K keeps recalculating the state of the network – every further switch changes the picture again.
The same principle in every system
These are the systems we are working on. The scope grows as development moves on – the waitlist hears first what will be in at launch.
- ELECElectrical
- Generators, batteries and buses. If one source drops out, the next takes over – and whatever hangs on a dead bus really is off.
- HYDHydraulics
- Three separate systems – green, blue and yellow – each with its own pumps. If one loses pressure, you lose exactly what depends on it.
- FUELFuel
- Tanks, pumps and valves. Which tank empties when, and what reaches the engines, follows from the logic – not from a hard-wired readout.
- BLEED · PRESSBleed air and pressurisation
- Bleed air from the engines or the APU feeds the air conditioning, which in turn keeps the cabin pressurised. Break one link in that chain and you see the effect on the BLEED, COND and PRESS pages.
- F/CTLFlight controls
- The control surfaces depend on flight control computers and hydraulic systems. If one of them fails, the F/CTL page shows what is still working.
- AUTO FLTAutopilot and autothrust
- Autopilot, flight director and autothrust work hand in hand. Which modes are active and which are armed is shown at the top of the PFD, just like in the real aircraft.
- ECAMWarning logic
- Monitors the systems, ranks messages by urgency and lists the actions that come next.
One Core does the computing. The clients do the showing.
Fly-K is built as a host-client system. The Core computes all of the system logic in one place. The clients draw the displays and take your inputs – on the same PC or spread across your network.
Everything on one machine: Core and clients run side by side.
Three machines: one for the Core, one for the displays, one for MCDU, pedestal and overhead.
Six machines: the Core and every client on a PC of its own.
The schematic shows how Fly-K is structured. The flight simulator is connected to the Core. The Core is the host: it computes the system logic and is connected to five clients.
The clients in this example: captain's displays (PFD and ND), ECAM (E/WD and SD), first officer's displays (PFD and ND), MCDU and pedestal, overhead.
The Core sends the system state to every client. MCDU, pedestal and overhead also send inputs back to the Core.
Core and clients can run together on one PC or be spread across several networked Windows PCs.
- System state – from the Core to the clients
- Inputs – from the clients to the Core
- Boundary of one Windows PC
- Connection to the flight simulator
The Core
The Core is the host. It computes every system and holds the single valid state of the aircraft. That is why all displays show the same picture at all times – no matter which machine they run on.
The clients
A client shows what the Core tells it to: a PFD, the ECAM displays, an MCDU. It sends inputs back to the Core. All computing happens there.
The setup
You decide what runs where: everything on one PC, or spread across as many Windows PCs as your cockpit needs. When the cockpit grows, you add a machine.
We fly the aircraft we simulate.
Fly-K is developed by A320 pilots. A manual tells you how a system is built. How it behaves in day-to-day operation is something you only learn by flying the type – and that knowledge goes straight into the software.
Procedures
What the manual tells you
Which steps a procedure has and the order they come in.
What you learn in the cockpit
What you wait for between two steps, and what you check while you wait. A flow only works if every system responds at the right moment.
Timing
What the manual tells you
That a pump starts, a valve opens, a message appears.
What you learn in the cockpit
How long it takes. Whether something responds at once, after a few seconds or only after a self-test decides whether it feels real.
Details
What the manual tells you
What an indication means.
What you learn in the cockpit
What happens just before it: which indication reacts first, which message pushes another one aside, what shows up for a moment during a switchover.
What that means for you: you work through the real procedures – and your cockpit responds the way you expect the real aircraft to.
Your request goes straight to the developers.
Fly-K comes from a small team, not a corporation. When you write to us, you reach the people who do the development. That is how the software takes shape: in exchange with the people who run it in their own cockpits.
- 1
You write to us
A request, a missing detail, or something that behaves differently in the real aircraft: an email is all it takes.
- 2
We check it against the real thing
We compare your note with what we know from the real cockpit – and tell you honestly what will come of it.
- 3
We build it in
If it makes Fly-K better, we implement it. Short lines of communication mean no long sign-off loops between idea and code.
- 4
You try it out
You test the change in your cockpit and get back to us if something still isn't right.
and round again
Still in development – but we are already taking requests.
Write to us at mail@fly-k.com. Or join the waitlist: you will be the first to know when things get going.
What you need
Windows, a flight simulator and – if you use several machines – a network. Where something has not been settled yet, we say so.
- Windows PC
- Required
- Fly-K is Windows software. Core and clients run together on one PC or spread across several – each of them running Windows.
- Flight simulator
- Required
- Fly-K adds system logic and displays to your flight simulator; it does not replace it. We will announce which simulators are supported at launch.
- Network
- Only with several machines
- If you spread Fly-K across several machines, Core and clients talk to each other over your network. If everything runs on one PC, you need nothing extra for that.
- Computing power
- Not settled yet
- We will only state minimum requirements for processor, graphics card and memory once we can back them up. Everyone on the waitlist will hear them first.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers – and an honest “not settled yet” where we don't know ourselves.
What is Fly-K?
Windows software for home cockpits. Fly-K simulates the A320's system logic – what happens behind the switches – and draws the cockpit displays to go with it. It is built as a host-client system: one Core computes, the clients display.
Who is Fly-K for?
For anyone building or running an A320 home cockpit – whether everything runs on one machine or the cockpit is spread across several.
Which aircraft does Fly-K simulate?
The A320. Whether other types will follow later has not been decided.
Do I need several computers?
No. Core and clients also run together on one PC. Several machines pay off as your cockpit grows: you then spread the clients across as many networked Windows PCs as you need.
Which flight simulators does Fly-K work with?
We will announce that at launch. What is certain: you need a flight simulator – Fly-K adds system logic and displays to it, but does not replace it.
What does Fly-K cost, and when will it be released?
Neither has been settled. Fly-K is in development; we will only name a price and a date once we can stick to them. Everyone on the waitlist will hear first.
How can I send you requests and ideas?
Write to us at mail@fly-k.com. We are a small team – your message goes straight to the developers.
Can I use Fly-K for real pilot training?
No. Fly-K is intended for flight simulation only and is not approved for real-world flight training.
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