So the Italian CAA just publishes a printed map, which (presumably) has a lat/long grid on it, so SD would have to measure the coordinates from that?
I can see it is not as easy as copy/paste from the AIP PDF, but it's equally not hard. All you have to do it load the map into Oziexplorer, do a calibration on it, and just click on any point you want and there you go... If you want the corners of a complex shape, just draw a track around it and Save As, etc. Probably a day's work for Italy.
What that won't give you is a backstop for litigation... but then neither will copy/paste from the AIP if you did that incorrectly.
Most of the European AIPs contains loads of data which is not directly machine readable (i.e. it cannot be copied/pasted without some messing about) so this is no huge step.
I have georeferenced 300 aproach charts for Air Navigation Pro once, and it was really easy to do from the paper charts. For the amount of momey SD wants for their (great) product they should do EVERYTHING possible to get this data right.
This is a market where you only lose a customer ONCE. And I am sure more competition is coming.
The question "why can Jepp do it and SD cannot" is a good one, but again, I think that it merely has to do with the amount of labour / effort one is willing to put into a product. Sheds a whole new light on the (often bashed) Jepp products....
Jepp are the only ones to have done it correctly. PocketFMS/EasyVFR also have the Italian TMAs & VFR sectors shown correctly. It's hard work, but that's the price of doing it correctly.
And what about PocketFMS, EasyVFR to be precise? Anyone using it? Yes there are at least three of us here using it. I'm part of the PocketFMS Beta Crew. I'd suggest that you have a look at the tutorials to help you find out how to get the most out of it.
Tutorials: Video and text here
Feel free to email me if you have any questions. You can get my email here under DublinPilot. The link allows me to avoid spam bots.
This is a market where you only lose a customer ONCE.
They've already lost me before becoming a customer. The attitude they display in the link referenced by Peter above is scary, to put it mildly. They knowingly publish incorrect airspace data in the Rome area! Really? No way - won't be using that product.
Seriously - this is bordering on criminal negligence. It's one thing to make an error or an omission. It's quite another to sell a safety-critical aviation application and then knowingly (!!) include wrong data.
I suspect Italy is not a significant market for SD. I don't know much about Italian GA but the bits I have heard over the years suggest that most of it (in terms of numbers of pilots and aircraft) is low level microlight/homebuilt activity. If you fly mostly locally, you can manage in various ways. SD (the moving map version) is quite expensive.
I agree with 172driver; I would absolutely no question NOT publish a chart at all which has some essential info missing, just because it needs more work to capture the data.
I suspect Italy is not a significant market for SD
That's not the point. It's the attitude towards the integrity (or lack thereof) of their charts.
I am pretty sure that Italy should be a strong market for SD. I DO know that it is for Air Nav Pro, and I also know how crazy italians are about smartphones/tablets - and especially Apple products.
We could, as a group, approach SD and tell them what we think about this attitude. With 20.000 postings in a short time this forum cannot be irgnored by SD
Jepp are the only ones to have done it correctly. PocketFMS/EasyVFR also have the Italian TMAs & VFR sectors shown correctly.
Of course. I was just about to point this out. Makes the stance of SD stand out even more.
the bits I have heard over the years suggest that most of it (in terms of numbers of pilots and aircraft) is low level microlight/homebuilt activity. If you fly mostly locally, you can manage in various ways.
This is basically true. There is not that much serious VFR touring in classic SEP aircraft in Italy (by italian pilots). But every year, there are thousands of people flying to Italy from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and UK. The vast majority of these people used to use the Jeppesen VFR/GPS charts. They are screwed now. The italian ICAO chart really is horrible...
ultralight/micropilot/homebuilt is a pretty big market i think ... And it's not that you "can manage" in various ways, it's that pilots WANT these gadgets and apps, regardless if they really need them.
Yes. In Italy, ultralight pilots used to be restricted to max 1000 feet AGL in the past. Therefore, the only thing they needed to know was where there were any CTRs/TMAs/restricted areas that reached all the way to the ground and simply avoid these. Done. Avioportolano publishes a very neat chart that only depicts airspace below 1000 feet and it is very "clean" and readable, obviously.
However, with the introduction of the "advanced ultralight" rules in 2010, more and more ultralighters are now no longer restricted to max 1000 feet and therefore they now ought to have an understanding of the airspace structure in all three dimensions. No more way to get this using a paper chart now.
...And Skydemon does not depict the airspace correctly. So, the only real alternative currently is PFMS (plus maybe a couple of other, minor players).
But I guess that Jeppesen will include Italy in their MFDVFR product soon, very probably before the start of the next flying season. No help for people wishing to continue to use paper, though.
