I found it hard to believe that customer would prefer the familiarity with VFR and IFR charts for the cost of aforementioned disadvantages.
So do I. I use Skydemon which uses vector charts. I’ve also used Foreflight on a friend’s tablet in the US which showed the sectional. I much prefer the vector charts of Skydemon, the presentation is just a lot clearer.
There doesn’t seem to be a problem with enroute charts in vector format – because creating enroute charts from various data sources isn’t all that difficult. Lots of people have been up that road. The IFR database (waypoints and airways) is free, airport and navaid names and locations are free (airport data isn’t – it has to be copied/pasted from the AIP PDFs, and “other sources”), ground contours etc you can get from lots of sources.
It is terminal charts that are the problem.
So do I. I use Skydemon which uses vector charts. I’ve also used Foreflight on a friend’s tablet in the US which showed the sectional. I much prefer the vector charts of Skydemon, the presentation is just a lot clearer.
Well — I find the SkyDemon charts in general useless for navigation because the resolution is poor and they are full of inaccuracies. (Not aeronautical data inaccuracies, but geographical data inaccuracies.)
Horses for courses, IMHO.
VFR in Europe the Skydemon charts normalise the presentation process into one standard which helps prevent airspace misunderstandings. Despite this, I still buy individual national paper charts where they are available and use these in connection with Skydemon. I’ve had far too many in-flight Skydemon failures (Most recently last Sunday) to rely on it in any meaningful way. Skydemon’s presentation has improved in the last year or so and now begins to approach the late lamented Jepp VFR/GPS charts over things like bird sanctuaries, but with nothing like the clarity of the Jepps or (some of) the ICAO charts.
VFR in the US the sectionals are the word and Foreflight wins hands down by presenting these verbatim. I’ve tried Skydemon’s native charts in the US, for about 5 min, before I gave up and went back to Foreflight. Unlike Skydemon, I’ve never had Foreflight fail in flight (although I did once cross into a state where I’d forgotten to load the chart and had to fly low into a valley to pick it up from a hill top cell tower).
Horses for courses, IMHO.
Exactly. It’s no problem (for me, I should emphasize) using Foreflight as my primary source of in flight navigation data because it’d be no problem defaulting to looking out the window instead! (although in truth I’ve never had an in-flight failure). The US sectionals and terminal area charts are all in the same format, and they work.
I’m pretty happy with that state of affairs, and with whatever limitations it might apply, because it avoids me having to clutter up the plane and panel with on board avionics – which soak up time and money that I’d rather use elsewhere. There’s more than one reason to live where it’s sunny 
By the way, after messing with my ‘new’ $200 VOR receiver it’s good to 3 degrees or better on the four VORs I’ve checked it against, so legal. I don’t like carrying vastly inaccurate panel fillers around either. The first thing I replaced was a wet compass that could not be successfully ‘swung’…
PS Aveling, I’m really smiling imagining you swooping low to download some data
One minor issue I have is with memory space – a 16GB iPad runs out of steam rather quickly even when used for little other than aviation.
It’s not helped by some aviation magazines being 1GB per edition, but Apps like Jeppesen FliteDeck use 2GB and need extra space when updating. SkyDemon uses about 1.5GB with plates downloaded. Foreflight needs even more depending on what charts are downloaded.
So I’d say 32GB is the minimum for any new purchase.
Agree that tablets have revolutionised VFR navigation and do augment IFR, but can’t see panel mounted kit disappearing completely any time soon.
This is why I find it amazing that people believe they can use these toys for navigation instead of panel mounted stuff. I would not even use them for peripheral stuff like terminal chart display, because one really needs those at the critical time. But one cannot carry all the potentially required terminal charts in paper form so a compromise has to be accepted, and the device needs to be kept out of the sun and off the charger towards the end of the flight when it may be needed.
I guess if it’s good enough for all these guys, it’s good enough for me.
I guess if it’s good enough for all these guys, it’s good enough for me.
The main justification, IIRC, is that apart from delivering easily updated terminal charts, the Ipad saves them carrying some huge weight of paper manuals.
You can bet that if they got even one case of an in-flight shutdown due to heat, they would not be using them.
There is a longer history of “electronic flight bags” in jets. They always had two of them, they were aircraft powered, had limited controls (basically brightness and not a lot else) and no personal use was possible.
So the reliability issue boils down to whether you will get both pilots viewing the same PDF which is malformed in just the right way to crash the PDF reader, on both Ipads. That’s probably very unlikely (I have never seen my Ipad crash on a PDF, although there have been some it would not display – probably corrupted downloads) and in any case you could have two different PDF readers installed… as long as they aren’t both based on the same Adobe or Apple code.
But it is clearly possible because early IOS jailbreaks were done simply by viewing a specially malformed PDF. So there must be company controls on the updating process so e.g. the pilot is not allowed to just download some PDFs from some open website and fly with those.
If you now look at the typical private pilot Ipad user, he/she is failing on all of the above points i.e.
Please don’t say you want to use consumer products as primary means to keep you safe.
Is the world really going backwards? (yes it is rather quickly)
In more than one corner, today’s consumer grade is much more dependable/performant than yesterday’s professional. Photo cameras, to name just the obvious example.
How would my Icom A6 primary com device compare to the vacuum tube-based equipment of the 1950’s? Not too bad, I should reckon.
Nothing basically wrong about “consumer products” – only, as with all equipment anytime anyplace, be aware of the risks and limitations.
OTOH I heartily agree with Peter’s above writing: if using iTHING or indeed if/when using whatever, be conservative to update/“improve”/“modernise” it, and thoroughly validate any updates/upgrades before making yourself and your flying guests dependent.
