About Open Aviation Solutions

Aviation training is expensive both in terms of time and money:

• expensive for schools to run training;
• expensive for instructors to develop, improve and assess training; and
• expensive for students to take part in training.

Open Aviation Solutions exists because I believe that the aviation sector can also benefit from modern Open Source software development practices and carefully controlled generative AI development leading to better outcomes for students, instructors and training organisations as well as improved pilot safety generally.

How Open Aviation Solutions can improve aviation outcomes

Open Aviation Solutions aims to improve outcomes for students, instructors and training organisations within the aviation training sector in three specific ways:

• accelerate the availability and improvement of open source aviation training resources and software libraries
• provide modern aviation-specific software development services utilising open source software and carefully controlled generative AI development
• accelerate the use of more open simulator setups that are within reach of students’ home use for life-long learning

Accelerate open source training resources and software libraries

Open Aviation Solutions has begun the development of two related projects, both with the aim of enabling ongoing improvement of free and open source aviation training resources. You can read more on their respective pages:

• interactive learning components that can be used and improved by instructors or students on any webpage;
• interactive lesson briefings that can be used, adapted, restyled and improved by instructors and schools;

Both of those projects are already published under a free and open source license and are available and useable today. These projects both start from real teaching practice, but the open licence exists precisely because no single instructor’s perspective should set the ceiling on quality — the goal is resources that get better as more instructors use, critique, improve and adapt them.

In addition to those two training resources, I’ve started developing some open aviation software libraries that can be used and improved by software developers working with aviation training or other organisations, making it cheaper to build the next tool for aviation. These will be published under an open source license in the coming months as I continue to develop examples showing how they can be used.

Provide modern aviation-specific software development services

Aviation software development often sits between two worlds: software engineering practice on one side, and the operational reality of flying on the other. Closing that gap is hard without first-hand experience of both. Open Aviation Solutions provides aviation-specific software development services delivered by someone who is both an experienced software engineer and a Commercial Pilot Licence holder — bringing the detailed operational, regulatory and training-systems knowledge that licence requires.

If you choose to build software on top of open source libraries it can not only save time, but also mean that custom work for your organisation benefits from ongoing community improvements over time, rather than being locked into a single vendor. Combined with careful, disciplined use of generative AI in development, this approach delivers aviation-specific software more cost-effectively than traditional consulting.

You can read more about this approach — including how generative AI is used carefully and responsibly — on the open aviation software page.

Accelerate open simulator setups for home use

Student pilots often have to pay a higher price to train and learn on CASA-certified flight simulation training devices — and can lose access to these familiar simulators when completing their training. Yet training on a simulator setup in school could also be an opportunity to begin a life-long journey of personal training that’s useful for the rest of their flying career — for maintaining currency, practising instrument procedures, rehearsing emergencies, or familiarising themselves with a new aircraft type.

Open Aviation Solutions will be publishing open documentation, recipes and training strategies for consumer-grade simulator setups that students can learn to use effectively in school and gradually build up at home as a life-long pilot training resource. Combined with open scenarios, shared training profiles and integration with services like human-staffed virtual air traffic control, a home setup can become a serious training tool for life, rather than just a hobby rig.

Read more on the simulator learning strategies page.

Who is behind Open Aviation Solutions

I’m Michael Nelson — an Australian software engineer with:

• more than 20 years experience developing open source software;
• a Commercial Pilot Licence (currently building commercial flying hours) and a passion for flying;
• a postgraduate Diploma of Vocational Education and Training, a NSW State-wide Teaching award together with a long history of using technology to improve educational outcomes.

I started Open Aviation Solutions as a way to combine three of my passions: flying, solving interesting problems with technology and helping people learn. You can read more of my professional history on LinkedIn or of my own learning on my personal liveandletlearn.net website.

I currently work on Open Aviation Solutions projects as a side business, but hope to gradually sustain it through paid contracts or sponsorships that draw on the combination of software engineering, educational design and pilot perspective above:

• develop custom software for aviation organisations;
• develop new or customised interactive learning components;
• customise learning resources for organisations (such as tailoring a set of interactive RPL briefing presentations to your organisational needs, or using a custom 3D model of your actual training aircraft in an interactive component);
• deliver custom setups and training for more technical simulator learning strategies such as helping students integrate virtual air traffic control into their simulator training.

Of course, if you also contract me to fly your aeroplanes, I will be happy to do any of the above in my non-flying time for you at a much cheaper rate. Contact me to start discussing how I can help you.