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Skydemon (merged thread)

it appears the software is working as designed

I am sure that's true

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Having tried it, I really cant stand the airspace vs height filtering and graphics of skydemon. That is just my personal preference I'm willing to admit, but I'm seeing more and more people spending inordinate amounts of time heads down faffing around with iPads and a multitude of app features and letting their lookout and greater situational awareness totally degrade. The thought of people in the circuit staring at georeferenced iPad circuit plates fills me with horror. Perhaps I'm a Luddite, but to even express a mild dislike of skydemon on some forums is complete heresy it seems!

I'm currently running Runway HD with CAA charts which I think is brilliant, charts that I know and like and just enough features to enhance situational awareness without getting drawn into it.

Now retired from forums best wishes

I think you could argue the pro's and con's of each GPS tool ad-infinitum, personally I think showing only airspace of relevance is mostly useful especially where it is complex and has the safety benefit of not funneling all the VFR traffic through hot spots where there is lots of clear air, but the paranoid don't fly for rightful fear of busting CAS, so avoid anything with an 'A' in it whatever level it is at, as spotting every level change on a 2D chart is easily open to error (which is what started this thread in the first place).

However, there is no excuse for 'fiddling' with settings in the cockpit. SkyDemon is infinitely configurable, possibly a further reason this thread exists. Used correctly this is very useful - one of the features a couple of us have asked SkyDemon for is for all of the settings to be stored in the cloud and carried between devices. It is too easy to adjust something on the PC, plan a route and then be surprised by something in the air. Generally I think their defaults are quite smart, but it is clear that seeing the same configuration on all devices is quite key to help avoid the temptation for 'fiddling' and I don't think you can blame one piece of software for that. There will be more people 'fiddling' with SkyDemon in the GA VFR arena because they have a good product, if they weren't there someone else would fill the gap on the right platforms at the right price point, eventually ...

Personally I think the chart presentation is very good. Yes, it is not a CAA chart, which is possibly a negative for some in the UK, but neither when you go further afield is it a Jepp chart or other national chart format. For VFR Jepp's are as far as I can tell, next to useless and national charts vary from very good, to woeful, so for distance touring a single presentation is pretty handy. They also seem to be a darn sight better IMHO to the Garmin displays I have had exposure too.

Horses for courses and thankful for a free market :)

EGBP, United Kingdom

Just a quIck update to this one which may be of interest to SkyDemon users, or those looking at it. The developers have confirmed that they are looking for a good way to preserve setting changes you make on one device and transfer it to the others, cross-platform.

EGBP, United Kingdom

I suspect the reason why that airspace boundary "kink" has not been reported before is that it may not appear until you are above say 4500ft, which almost nobody flies at in the UK; especially that part of the UK which is very flat.

That kind of thing would be of serious concern if

  • flying in unfamiliar airspace, or

  • flying abroad, where flight is often done at rather "non British" altitudes i.e. above 2000ft

and relying on the software alone for CAS avoidance.

If flying with a GPS moving map showing the "real printed" chart, one can rely on that for CAS avoidance because, ahem, that is the real printed chart and so long as the GPS is working (which is usually obvious from signs like ground speed, etc) that will be right.

Obviously opinions on this are going to differ, but that flight was a lesson for me, and also I think my colleague.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I struggle to follow this thread. It looks like Skydemon and the CAA's maps agree on where the airspace is. The pic that seems to disagree is Peter's.

Peter: where did that pic come from? Did you manually highlight the airspace in MS Paint (or similar)? It looks as though you could have misinterpreted where Skydemon drew the airspace. The kink still exists but the line should be slightly further north - i.e. the boundary between 2500+ and 4500+ rather than as you have drawn between 4500+ and 5500+. Or am I missing the point? (Admittedly that's entirely possible!) Certainly the other Skydemon pics on here have the airspace depicted correctly.

If flying with a GPS moving map showing the "real printed" chart, one can rely on that for CAS avoidance because, ahem, that is the real printed chart

Unless the airspace has changed since the chart was printed. I don't expect that would be much of a defence for a bust. Surely the benefit of vector charts is they can (and are) updated frequently.

Fairoaks, United Kingdom

I don't expect that would be much of a defence for a bust. Surely the benefit of vector charts is they can (and are) updated frequently.

I'm not sure about this, I've seen NOTAMs about changes in airspace, but they seem to last a couple of weeks and disappear well before the next chart comes out. How are we supposed to know what is correct if a NOTAM has been withdrawn and the old (albeit non-AIP) chart is still current?

It would be quite embarrassing to the CAA if someone made a public fuss (say, on here) after infringing an area not shown on a current chart or NOTAM.

I fly with Skydemon and the CAA chart. For anything non-trivial I draw the lines on the CAA chart and annotate each leg with min/max altitudes for MSA, and controlled airspace. Skydemon has saved me from one serious bust at the end of a 3 hour VFR flight, where the last 2 hours 50 minutes had been spent at FL60-ish when I approached the London TMA from the north.

I find skydemon quite hard to use for airspace above my current level - so if I want to climb I always cross-check against the CAA chart. On the other hand, skydemon is excellent for telling me when I've passed the edge of a step in controlled airspace and can start to climb.

Skydemon already generates MSAs (although I sanity check them against the charts) - it would be great if it could generate min/max altitudes remaining clear of Class A for each leg (or even better, let me choose what to stay clear of - eg when flying across Belgium I don't care about Class C, but I do want to avoid active danger danger areas and airways and in france I don't care about airways but I want to avoid the Paris TMA ... etc). Another useful feature would be to give it the current pressure setting and have it give back a list of available cruising levels (for non-UK flying), trimmed for the airspace and allowing for the transition layer as needed.

EGEO

Peter: where did that pic come from? Did you manually highlight the airspace in MS Paint (or similar)?

Yes; I drew a thick purple line, where SD drew a similar thick purple (or similar colour) line, during that particular moment of the flight.

Next time, if I fly with the same pilot, we will pop down there (near Headcorn) and I will get a video of the Ipad screen. Then there will be no argument

Please note this "kink" (which I think is just an artefact of the algorithm, not correctly joining up the lines of equal-base CAS) is nothing to do with any near-bust. I saw it when well away from CAS. In fact we both saw it, and wondered what the hell that thick line was supposed to be showing, so we got the 1:500k CAA chart out, and confirmed it was wrong. I have been flying in that area since 1999 so I know the CAS shapes intimately.

I think SD is a slick tool (and have always said so) but clearly it needs a very thorough understanding of its config options, and from what I saw it is not beyond doing some odd stuff.

It would be quite embarrassing to the CAA if someone made a public fuss (say, on here) after infringing an area not shown on a current chart or NOTAM.

I think that cases where CAS has changed are actually very rare, and that is the main reason the CAA is able to get away with publishing the VFR charts only once a year. And, astonishingly, this also applies to the Memory Map "near-monopoly-publisher" electronic versions, for which there is no excuse at all.

When the southern LTMA CAS went from FL055 to 5500ft, I busted it from underneath by about 500ft (QNH was well above 1013) about 1 week after the change came in. And probably 1000 others did too, because I only got a polite telling off by Gatwick Director. But this is very rare. In that case I think it happened because I was a week or two late buying the new chart

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I have used SD for a few hours, and in my opinion it is best suited for local flights in areas you are familiar with. I tried to use it on some international trips, and found it not satisfactory.

When flying into GDANSK VFR none of the controllers understood the places/fixes that SD proposed. I experienced the same in Germany and opted to change to Jeppesen while in the air.

For local flights it is very nice, but for going places I use Jeppesen.

When flying into GDANSK VFR none of the controllers understood the places/fixes that SD proposed

I dont have any experience of using SkyDemon outside of the UK but it does show all of the IFR intersection points (it certainly shows more than the CAA chart does), so can you not use those internationally as opposed to unofficial name places SkyDemon lists?

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