For this to work, we had to build a database of all water surfaces on the planet.
You know, I’m getting more and more amazed about what you do.
Impressive Leistung indeed – I especially admire the effort of creating the list of water surfaces. Perhaps it was derived from freely available GIS data like OpenStreetMap or such?
But it only increases hope for a VFR-too version, even with limited functionality.
This is fantastic – well done!
Patent it!
I think that was the final straw. A eurofpl user for years, I have known for some time that I should start using autorouter, but this is a feature I (single engine jockey) have missed for years without ever believing it would appear anywhere. Almost every IFR flight except local flights takes me out over the sea, and I have gotten used to plan a simple route, and then when flying, beg the sometimes mildly irritated ATC for a route closer to land. I intend to use autorouter from now and I am looking forward to find out how this feature works.
It was always achievable by using fly-through waypoints, but digging out appropriate ones needs some other tool which displays IFR enroute charts.
I will always (if the water is warm) fly the direct route – but to Sweden, Denmark … I’d rather use your feature. It’s a great achievement and you should try to protect it. Very impressive!
Can you patent something in Europe after making a disclosure? In the USA you can, AIUI. But a disclosure also prevents anybody else patenting it, which is generally a good thing.
Can you patent something in Europe after making a disclosure?
In general no, but you could run the risk of infringing someone else’s patents. If you had patented it, you would be aware of such things as part of the patent process, and could have made the needed changes.
Just wanted to express my happiness. When filing a flight plan autorouter includes an ICS file in the confirmation email, which makes the flight with details appear in the calendar.
That’s a tiny detail and does show how very well the autorouter team has understood how to delight customers. Very good!
