The desktop product Jeppview stops displaying terminal charts after 60 days but land data remains seemingly for ever.
The JeppFD Ipad product stops working after some similar time, and this is true for terminal charts and (in the JeppFD-VFR version) the land maps too.
A KLN94 keeps working past a few months for sure, for both enroute and approaches.
Skydemon stops working after some similar time – I recall a discussion on this somewhere. It is basically a “rental” package.
Navbox never expires.
The Garmin 496 never expires.
Others I don’t know about. For panel mount products, I would expect land data to remain for ever but Jepp terminal charts to be disabled after X days after expiry.
Any other feedback?
In the Cirrus the Jeppesen Approach charts stay active for 10 weeks on the MFD and after that they have a label “Not for Navigation” and don’t show a/c position anymore.
It’s clear that this has nothing to do with safety – only with marketing. Why would an inactive 11 weeks old chart be safer than an active one? This way pilots are forced to buy subscriptions and not only trip kits.
I have an old skymap IIIc in my aircraft, but not even switch it on. It would work with a database from 2008.
Yes – my 2001 Skymap 2 worked “for ever” too. I sold it on Ebay only a few months ago. The last available update was c. 2008. I wonder what the RAF did after that… some squadron reportedly bought > 100 of them.
Presumably the KMD150 (a panel mount version of your Skymap 3C, with a useful “oversight” of being the only panel mount GPS into which you could trivially upload a flight plan from any of a number of PC programs e.g. Navbox) is the same as the 3C.
The KMD550 (a re-hashed KMD150, no GPS, but with extra I/O options) also works “for ever”. My database was last updated in 2010.
It’s clear that this has nothing to do with safety – only with marketing.
And as it is an American product, I guess that liabililty concerns are also a factor. But in a drawer somewhere I have an old Garmin handheld (90 or 92) with a database from 1996 or 97 that still works and shows airspaces and navaids that have been decommissioned 20 years ago. That thing is almost useless anyway because it consumes a full battery charge and needs around three hours to compute it’s initial position…
When I bought the Tiger, the database card in the GNS 430 was several years old but everything seemed to work fine. I did not fly any approaches from that database, but at least they remained selectable. Enroute operation was unaffected at all.
Yes, the GNS databases stay! It’s only the Approach and Taxi Charts that are affected …
Could a GNS ever display any terminal charts? I thought only the GTN750 can do that, of the Garmin GPS boxes (plus G500 G1000 etc of course).
Could a GNS ever display any terminal charts?
No, not by itself. Only when connected to some kind of multi-function display (e.g. Avidyne) which it feeds with position data and route information. The charts themselves must be stored/generated by the display device.
EasyVFR operate two different systems.
A subscription model with two different possible licences (called Frequent Flyer Membership & EasyVFR licence)
A Pay Once model (Called Fusion Membership)
The subscription is annual, and once the subscription is up, it no longer functions. You get warnings both my email and in the app when the subscription is nearning an end. The licence for this is cheaper to reflect the fact that it’s time limited.
The pay once model will never stop working, but you can’t update either the app or the data. (Actually you can purchase updates when you wish, but you have to pay for them individually). The initial licence for this is more expensive, to reflect the fact that it doesn’t stop working.
I’m not sure of the exact figure, but very very few members opts for the pay once model. This is probably because the initial price is more expensive, and if you keep everything working all the time and always updated, then the subscription actually works out cheaper. The pay once model only works out cheaper if you continue to work with out of date program versions, old aerodata, and accept that you can’t use the weather and NOTAM data.
