SkyDemon and local areas/sectors/restrictions
I was in Augsburg EDMA on Saturday, arriving and leaving IFR and I also did a local VFR flight. I had SkyDemon with me without the German subscription. I had reviewed the Jeppesen chart of the airport and knew there is a glider sector which had to be avoided when flying out via route Sierra. Thus I was not surprised when the controller gave me a take off clearance with the remark to stay out of that sector.
However SkyDemon does not have the glider sector and if I didn’t have the Jeppesen chart I would not have known where it was. I suppose with the German subscription that would be better (having a chart that includes the sector) but I am wondering if that happens in other countries without additional products as well. If so, does this mean SkyDemon is not reliable enough to fly only with it? Obviously for Germany (just as for Switzerland) the additional subscription is a must if one doesn’t have other complementary products.
This experience makes me uncomfortable flying only with SkyDemon, i.e. I don’t trust it enough. I’ve seen a lot of people here saying they fly entirely with SD only but has anyone had a problem e.g. entering an area which was not included in it?
It’s not a “Skydemon problem”. As you say, it’s a matter of Swiss and German VACs not being free if charge, so
Obviously for Germany (just as for Switzerland) the additional subscription is a must if one doesn’t have other complementary products
is correct.
They just can’t depict all those details from the VAC on their “proprietary” maps. That’s why the above applies.
In other countries, say France, it’s fine, because the VACs can be shown (FOC) in the product.
In the UK, you will still need Pooleys or AFE (or website information), since the AIP only contains licensed airfields.
I see these products on the web site:
Does that mean it’s the same for Italy, the Czech Republic and Slovakia?
They just can’t depict all those details from the VAC on their “proprietary” maps. That’s why the above applies.
In other countries, say France, it’s fine, because the VACs can be shown (FOC) in the product.
That’s an interesting point.
Normally, when publishing something, and having been given confidential info, you cannot make use of the confidential info unless it has also been disclosed publicly elsewhere (an inadvertent disclosure is normally OK for this purpose).
So SD could include data which appears in the commercially marketed German AIP section IF that data appears “somewhere out there” also.
I guess one problem is that even going to airport websites (to check if some of the AIP data appears openly on there) is dodgy because DFS has reportedly attacked some airports for publishing it, and since nobody knows who they might attack next, a lot of German airport data is out of bounds.
I had a case recently where a customer wanted to prevent me from selling a product, citing confidental information supplied, but I was able to point out that one of his dealers had the stuff on his website for 15 years 
But I guess SD doesn’t want the hassle. Is SD big in the German market?
Yes. Not quite a big as in the UK (their home market), but a close second I would guess.
Why should one have to pay for information relating to safety? It’s the equivalent of paying to see a road sign.
That’s the way things were everywhere until maybe 10 years ago… The AIP was a printed document which had to be bought. I think Greece was the last one to go online, a few years ago. Not that anybody ever read the Greek AIP anyway – the contents was mostly obsolete nonsense, especially the airport opening hours which are in the notams. Italy was also very late.
But there is a key difference in that the German DFS apparently enforces any breach of their “ownership” of the VFR data.
This is one thing which makes Jepp’s VFR tablet product (search EuroGA for MFDVFR) better value than it might otherwise appear. You get their “Flitestar/Jeppview VFR Europe supplement”, in effect.
I’ve chopped it off because we don’t want to get sued
That’s the VFR chart you get in JeppFD as well.
The amazing thing for me is how anyone succeeds to fly VFR in whole Europe – one needs to buy multiple products to find all the charts. I know some countries are available online but I think it’s far from “all”. I know of this site which gives links to the online products and I don’t see i.e. Bulgaria in it although it is a EU country. For Bulgaria I only found where I can order the paper version for some 150 EUR (if I remember correctly) per year. That’s why I was so enthusiastic about SD, having all charts, areas, etc. But now I am back to square one – search online, buy paper, hope you have the right data.
Does that mean it’s the same for Italy, the Czech Republic and Slovakia?
Not entirely. The German and Swiss publications you mention are from the authorities, the others (those for the UK, too) come from private enterprise publishers, which might bring us back to the old argument of how legal one is when carrying these as the only source of navigation/aerodrome information.
I am following this thread with great interest. I am the opinion also that safety related VFR Airspace information should be available from the official Data Provider sources in a harmonised format, so integrators can make it part of there products even though it’s not part of the AIP. This information ideally needs to be made available in an official digital exchange format.
thanks for sharing
