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Skydemon (merged thread)

There is unlikely to ever be a product with which you could just launch off on a VFR trip across Europe, relying on it totally in-flight.

Even taking the UK, there are plenty of notams which describe effectively prohibited areas and which contain coordinate lists, which can be incorrectly parsed and you are directed to a map in some AIC which shows the area properly.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

There is unlikely to ever be a product with which you could just launch off on a VFR trip across Europe, relying on it totally in-flight.

I get your point, but again, what is the alternative? The paper Jeppesens are partly not kept up to date any longer, and the national VFR charts are just horrible in certain countries (Italy, Spain). Will Jepp MFDVFR be the only choice?

Even taking the UK, there are plenty of notams which describe effectively prohibited areas and which contain coordinate lists, which can be incorrectly parsed and you are directed to a map in some AIC which shows the area properly.

So the question boils down to: who is more likely to "miss" a NOTAM? The programmer or the pilot?

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Re Pocket FMS, I've been using it for several years now and so far, I have not found anything better for VFR. They really do go the extra mile (s) for their navdata and so far, I have yet to find an error in there. I do use it both on my PC for pre-flight planning and enroute on my Samsung Galaxy Tab (as Easy VFR). I also transfer the plans regularly onto my backup GPS which is a Garmin 496.

To generate routings, the updates of the charts and navdata and price/performance is 2nd to none.

Since about 2 years they also do geo-referenced ICAO charts for most of europe. I must admit however that I prefer their own chart type, which is in a larger scale and therefore better readable, but that is a question of taste. I have yet to play with their latest addition, namely to add geo-referenced AIP charts where available.

I am totally happy with PFMS. I have tried just about everything else I could get my hands on and for VFR, I have not found anything more complete and better for the money paid.

The only gotcha that Pocket FMS unfortunately has is that it's performance model for preflight planning is "interesting" to say the least. One can tweak it (and it works perfectly for my Mooney now once I got the idea on how to do it) but it is non standard and awkward to use. Rob Weyers has told me he does plan to make it a standard performance model one day but that day is not yet there. Nevertheless, even with that funny performance model (which is based on IAS rather than TAS) it delivers good results if you learn how to tweak it.

Philipp,

I have crossed into Italian airspace a few times, but aimed to keep out of the Milano and Rome TMA's for said reasons. However, if I remember right (2011/12) it said on the Jeppesen map that in the area I was in (North of Bolzano - Dobbiacco - Ljubljana) that contact with Padova Information was compulsory. Never had any problems there, due to flying high.

You are right, I should not go on about this. I am back flying since the beginning of 2010 and have done quite a few flights since. Before I stopped, I was flying predominantly IFR. I am kicking my own behind massively that I allowed my IR to lapse sufficiently so that I have to totally redo it, but it will be the logical consequence. Right now, as my airplane is also not IFR certified, it would not change much because it will be about a year or so before I can afford the massive cost involved of getting it IFR to my liking (which will mean upgrading to an Aspen PFD plus installing an S-TEC 55 AP as well as a 2nd Garmin 430). Quite possibly I may have to decide to change airplanes rather than taking on this upgrade. So for me, it will be either back to IFR or probably I will quit, this time for good. VFR simply does not satisfy me and the dispatch rate I have had was absymal due to the horrible weather we had in the last 2 years. Once that is done, VFR will be exactly when there is no alternative or for local pleasure trips. For serious travelling and with fixed schedules in mind (which have to be fixed months ago due to inflexible work planning) VFR is simply a source of constant frustration and not only due to the airspace issue.

BTW, I would like to repeat what I said earlier, your site is one of the best things I have ever seen for flying in a complex country. I know several people who did not dare to fly to Italy before they found your site and have since done it. Keep it going, we do need more dedicated people like yourself!

Achim,

I am well aware that VFR is non standard in a lot of places. I prefer to go where it is straightforward. Personally, but that is me, I prefer how things work in the former Yugoslavia, where you are basically flying CVFR the whole time and get an easy and simple planning and great service by ATC. Germany is also pretty good as there still is a lot of open VFR space around, likewise Austria and Switzerland.

Greece, as previously discussed, is out for me due to range and reserve considerations, simply not enough Avgas airfields there. As far as I have seen however, they are much more welcoming to transiting VFR flights from a planning point of view. If I was in the situation Peter is in (with 1300 NM range and IFR) neither Greece nor Italy would be any problem.

Peter,

There is unlikely to ever be a product with which you could just launch off on a VFR trip across Europe, relying on it totally in-flight.

I'd say Pocket FMS comes close, when we are talking about the airspace issue. As Philipp sais, there is no alternative soon enough. Jeppesen seems to give up their paper VFR charts and several other countries don't have them in the first place (BG, Greece) or have mediocre quality, so I do have to say I much prefer an electronic solution I can rely on. One can alway print out the necessary sheets and take them along as a backup, which is what I do.

Best regards Urs

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

If Skydemon is no good for flying in Italy, you have other options:

  • the Jepp charts if available
  • the Jepp Raster Charts DVD (view/print them with Flitestar VFR which can be found for about €100)
  • the new Jepp VFR planner (currently has only a few countries and they told me it will match the Raster Charts coverage by end of 2013)
  • some other software which is correct (e.g. PFMS?)

I never had any problem flying in Italy VFR with the Jepp charts. The issues I did have were substantial and concerned extreme non-transparency of avgas availability (bordering on a farce sometimes) and some bizzare airport behaviour where e.g. they would not let me land, alleging non-receipt of Customs PNR which was faxed to them four times the previous day. I think going into big airports is fine (e.g. Caglieri LIEE) but even they hassled me for months afterwards over some nonexistent issue with fuel payment which I was able to sort out only because I kept the paperwork.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

One other important issue is airways in UK airspace. AFAIK, these are well depicted in Skydemon, even though their outlines are not described by coordinates in the UK AIP (look at ANP, where these airways are all missing completely!).

ANP shows the genuine CAA map if purchased (or the DFS map in Germany). Why would you need the airways in an VFR only software? SD is moving into IFR market, so that is one of the reasons, not because of their 'home' market. You don't need the airways to bimble around here. As we know airways is a scare word for the plain vanilla UK VFR pilot.

So the question boils down to: who is more likely to "miss" a NOTAM? The programmer or the pilot?

Some other products (Rocketroute) had NOTAMs missing at all.

United Kingdom

One other important issue is airways in UK airspace. AFAIK, these are well depicted in Skydemon, even though their outlines are not described by coordinates in the UK AIP (look at ANP, where these airways are all missing completely!).

I'm somewhat confused about what you mean.

If you mean showing the airway centre line, then indeed SD does that well, but it's not of much use unless you fly IFR.

If you mean (what most UK pilots refer to airways) the chunks of class A airspace which are defined by the airway centre lines and a specified width, I always thought that SD do this very badly.

SD take the AIP defination (which is a centreline and a width which is usually 10nm but can vary) and show this as a rectangle. However of course these centrelines turn and twist and cross other airways. SD does nothing with this and simply shows the rectangles overlapping.

Have a look at the area around Liverpool (an area that I regularly fly in when going to the UK). Set the hide airspace to the same level as is shown on a paper UK VFR Chart 19,500ft.

This is what you see.

Can anyone really make any sense of that? Personally I think it's impossible to even get an understanding of what the general structre is in this area. (The same is true of plenty of other areas in the UK).

Actualy the structure is quite simply. Most of those retangles are irrelevant for VFR pilots. They are simply overlapping class A airspace (or in some cases overlapping class D airspces). They have the same class, same vertical extent and controlled by the same ATC unit on the same frequency.

PocketFMS goes to the trouble of carefully merging these when there is no difference for a VFR pilot. (Conditions above). It's a lot of extra work, and requires continious maintenance, but the results make airspace that is unintelligble, easy to understand.

Compare the same area in EasyVFR:

I think you'd be hard pushed to say anything other than the EasyVFR depiction of these airways is a lot clearer. If you were simply talking about the centre lines for IFR pilots I could agree with you, but there is no way that I think SD do a good job on the class A airspace that the UK airways define.

Of course this can't be automated and takes a lot of work.

I suppose SD get away with this becuase most UK pilots rarely fly above 2000ft. So they stop showing airspace above 3000ft by default. (At least I think 3000ft is their default in SD light.)

As far as I know, nobody else other than PocketFMS makes this effort apart from NATS on their paper chart, and Jeppensen on their paper chart.

Colm

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Or course this can't be automated

I would challenge that statement. SD has all information that should allow an algorithm to come up with a representation like in EasyVFR. The question is whether your merging is 100% correct (I have no reason to believe it's not) and whether it's correct to merge distinct airspaces into a single airspace. After all the AIP lists them as separate airspaces.

My vote is for puting Eurocontrol in charge of all airspace layouts. And make sure the head of that department is neither French, Italian nor British.

and whether it's correct to merge distinct airspaces into a single airspace. After all the AIP lists them as separate airspaces.

That's not necessarily the case. Take an airway that runs one direction and then turns a corner. This is one airspace, but two overlapping rectangles in SD.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

whether it's correct to merge distinct airspaces into a single airspace. After all the AIP lists them as separate airspaces.

IMHO the synthetic presentation should match the printed chart - as PFMS does.

It does not make sense to depict the "airways" without blending them. That is just stupid. It defies the way the brain is trying to make sense of airspace. There should be no boundaries depicted where there are none in 3D space.

The AIP is published to discharge ICAO obligations, not to help pilots fly a plane.

And it's full of bollocks. For example the French AIP still lists a load of airports as having Customs - maybe a year after they were withdrawn.

SD is moving into IFR market, so that is one of the reasons, not because of their 'home' market.

I wonder what they want to achieve.

Unless you are simply a gadget freak, flying IFR is totally different in terms of required information.

Also the market is much more fragmented. What VFR pilots need is a clear depiction of CAS so they can either avoid it, or get a clearance. But IFR has a legal requirement for an IFR certified (BRNAV) GPS installation so you need something at least half decent in the panel. That will always be the device primarily interacted with, not least because it's driving the autopilot.

So where is the "added value" in such a portable product, for IFR?

For me (IFR always when going abroad) the greatest value derives from being able to generate an "optimised" Eurocontrol route, and print it out as strip charts. And print the plog. That saves buying any IFR charts, which is a great thing because they change all the time and cost money. Anti paper people can load the PDF onto an Ipad, etc (and hope it doesn't pack up, or implement backups).

Currently I do the above using FPP and Flitestar, but there are other adequate ways.

An alternative workflow would be the development of the optimised route and then have a GPS moving map over the route (i.e. no strip chart generation). That is what e.g. the old (and crappy) Jepp Flitedeck gave you (except it would not develop a route, but you could import a routepack from Flitestar). I played with that a fair bit and decided it is worthless because - given the primary reference is the panel mount GPS - what one really needs on the additional moving map is VFR charts, or a synthetic topo-only presentation if crossing overcast mountains. The device doesn't get looked at in flight - unless you have an emergency (and an emergency is a VFR situation because your obstacle clearance is now in doubt) or somebody wants to know what some pretty lake etc is called...

IFR flight is really very simple and there is no need to complicate it. One certainly doesn't need a depiction of "airways" - not least because ATC ignores them, routing traffic within a broad width and often outside the 10nm wide "airway" if there happens to be adjacent CAS anyway so you are not leaving CAS.

99.9% of IFR is by named waypoints. Very rarely one is asked to fly an airway by name. I got this twice so far in 8 years. I bet it would suprise a seasoned airline pilot too. This is where the strip charts (or whatever equivalent depiction you have) comes in, but it is very rare. But this is why I object to flying (as some claim to do) with just the raw waypoint list as e.g. EuroFPL emails you just before the flight.

I suppose SD get away with this becuase most UK pilots rarely fly above 2000ft. So they stop showing airspace above 3000ft by default. (At least I think 3000ft is their default in SD light.)

Judging from the reaction I got to some post I made on that subject on the "principal SD advertising site" I don't think most SD users are aware of it, either.

I think it's a very slick product but very few pilots can (or can be bothered) to get their head fully around the functionality. I've seen it used in flight and most of the pilots only use the very basic function. It's a bit like me using Flitestar to parse the ex-FPP IFR route and print off the strip charts and the plog, and to hell with the other 99% of the functionality...

If I was now having to fly everywhere VFR I would just have the "printed" VFR charts (or an equivalent and reliable presentation, which could be PFMS, or the "forthcoming" Jepp product) running as a GPS moving map. The plog would be knocked up in a few clicks with some simple tool like Navbox.

I've been a long way down the "gadget road" and now I have gone back to basics.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Anti paper people can load the PDF onto an Ipad, etc (and hope it doesn't pack up, or implement backups).

I like my car but I don't consider myself to be an anti horse person

I wonder what they want to achieve. Unless you are simply a gadget freak, flying IFR is totally different in terms of required information.

Just draw a route, look at the airway network, waypoints, etc. I wouldn't say SkyDemon is trying to conquer the IFR market but it's a nice and probably not too difficult add on. The Garmin 495/695 etc. can also show IFR routes. Why would I complain about additional functionality?

An alternative workflow would be the development of the optimised route and then have a GPS moving map over the route ... what one really needs on the additional moving map is VFR charts, or a synthetic topo-only presentation if crossing overcast mountains

Exactly what SkyDemon is good at. I have my IFR route but I also see additional information like names of towns and lakes and a vertical profile. IFR enroute is a virtually workload free time most of the time. I use the boring GNS430W to steer the aircraft but the 695 + iPad to plan ahead during the flight. I've used just about every flight planning software and I am very pleased with SkyDemon. Easy to use, powerful and slick interface. So much better than Air Nav Pro in my opinion.

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