AFAIK, it’s a product developed and managed in the US. I don’t trust any such VFR products for Europe. European airspace has lots of detail particularities that need to be known and evaluated. Even SD needed years to work out all these quirks of the airspace design of some countries, before everything was 99% alright.
boscomantico wrote:
I would not feel comfortable with Garmin Pilot, using just their own vector maps for flying VFR in Europe. Their “maps” have never been 100% suitable for serious VFR flying, and I guess they still aren’t.
What is the problem as you see it with the Garmin Pilot mapping?
I can happily report that the airspace was a complete non-issue and that the skydemon maps corresponded exactly to what ATC were saying.
Interestingly, we did get an 8.33 frequency – I think that’s the first one I’ve had anywhere while VFR.
Sure, but flying with an outdated paper chart would be even worse.
I am watching Italy and SD closely and as far as I can see, it is all more or less correct since a few years.
Also, always flying in radio contact with FIS or ATC does give some protection against making bad mistakes.
The problem is how can you be sure some electronic map is accurate? For example SD did say, some time ago, for Italy, that since the airspace was described in a form which was hard to parse, they just ignored it. This was posted here at the time. Later they fixed that bit but I wonder what may be missing now. They probably have very few users in Italy and even fewer willing to report issues in English to a UK company (this is always the final problem with getting feedback on any product) so stuff can be missing for ages.
Jepp MFDVFR was accurate at the time, however, but costs a lot more money than Skydemon.
Again? Is there any description of that anywhere just out of curiosity?
Yes, again. Don’t know where once could find an English “description” of the changes. It’s rather complex.
Basically, they totally redesigned the airspace between FL95 and FL195. Previously, outside of any TMAs, this was all class G, much like in the UK.
Now, they have plastered that airspace with several CTAs, class D. So, if one were to fly VFR at these altitudes, one would now definitely need to get a clearance. But again, these are not normally a problem and in practice, one would not fly usually up there non-radio, so in practice, very little changes.
In this regard, the airspace structure has now become more similar to the German one. I think they use Germany a lot as an example of how to do things and then adopt things accordingly.
I would not feel comfortable with Garmin Pilot, using just their own vector maps for flying VFR in Europe. Their “maps” have never been 100% suitable for serious VFR flying, and I guess they still aren’t.
Jeppesen Mobile Flite Deck VFR, EASYVFR, Garmin Pilot
Skydemon?
boscomantico wrote:
there was a fundamental redesign of the Italian airspace structure one month ago.
Again? Is there any description of that anywhere just out of curiosity?
