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makerplane-data

makerplane-data keeps an experimental aircraft's avionics current and configured — from a laptop at the hangar. It is the data-and-configuration half of the MakerPlane open-source avionics stack: it delivers signed navigation data, panel layouts, and aircraft parameters to a pyEfis EFIS and its FIX-Gateway companion, over WiFi or a USB stick, and tells the pilot when something is stale.

It does not carry live flight data. That is the runtime bus (FIX-Gateway / CAN-FIX). makerplane-data carries the reference and configuration data the avionics read — the things that change on a cycle, not in flight.

The three things it does

Area	What it delivers	Where it runs	Status
Navigation Data Currency	Signed terrain, airport, navaid, obstacle, water & road packs on a 28-day cycle	Build pipeline → navdata.aerocommons.org → on-Pi updater	Live
The Configurator	A web app to design EFIS panels visually and push them to a paired aircraft	pyefis.aerocommons.org	Live (editor + device delivery)
Aircraft Parameters (CAN-FIX)	Per-aircraft V-speeds, gauge bands, engine & fuel limits for the FIX database	Same web app → aircraft.ini for FIX-Gateway	Phase A (edit + download; auto-delivery next)

The one idea that ties it together

Everything makerplane-data ships follows the same safety pattern: a verified artifact is placed atomically, and a bad download can never disturb what is already running. Navigation packs are signed and checked against a signed catalog; panel configs and aircraft parameters ride the same download → verify → atomic-swap plumbing on the aircraft. See Architecture for how that works end to end.

Start here

• New to the project? Read Architecture first — it explains the whole system in one page.
• Keeping data current on your aircraft? → Navigation Data Currency
• Designing a panel? → The Configurator
• Setting up V-speeds and gauge limits? → Aircraft Parameters

The wider stack

makerplane-data is one repo in a larger avionics system:

  data sources ─▶ FIX-Gateway ─(FIX keys)─▶ pyEfis (the EFIS display)
  (GPS, ADS-B,          │                         │
   X-Plane, CAN)        │                         └─ reads reference data from
                        │                            /data/makerplane-data/…
  makerplane-data keeps that reference data current, ───┘
  and delivers panel layouts + aircraft parameters to both boxes.

• pyEfis — the EFIS display that reads the packs and runs the panels this repo delivers.
• FIX-Gateway — the data hub; consumes the aircraft-parameter profile.
• MakerPlane — the open-source aircraft project this all serves.

Licensing (open by design)

This is an open project with no secret sauce — the architecture is deliberately published as prior art so it stays free to implement. Components are licensed by role: the data tools and device updater are Apache-2.0 (build against them freely, with an express patent grant); the hosted configurator service is AGPL-3.0; documentation is CC BY 4.0. Packaged data keeps its own terms (FAA public domain, Copernicus, OpenStreetMap ODbL). Full detail: docs/LICENSE-AUDIT.md.

This wiki explains how the system works. For implementation detail, the docs/ folder and per-package READMEs in the repository are the deep reference; links throughout point there.