Looking for pilots to test new pilot app

[igarratt]

Thanks to the miserable weather in Liverpool my spare time has been in abundance!

So I developed a clever little app for android just for pilots, it was based on all the android apps for log book etc being far too over complicated.
Also non of the apps I could find used the phone GPS to auto detect when you go flying and record take off and landing etc ready for you to just fill in the reg and add to log book.

I've done some testing and has been pretty spot on so far, just looking for some other pilots that might want to give it test run.

It's totally free, no adds and totally not for profit of any sort is on android market / google app store, just look for Pilot Pal or Target Aviation

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tar.pilotpal

is a user manual at Pilot Pal manual (http://targetaviation.servehttp.com/pilotpal/manual.htm)

[Piper.Classique]

Thank you, I'll give that a try with pleasure.

[thing]

Is it an easy job to port it over to Apple?

[magpienja]

Uploaded...my phone has limited memory....will it keep storing data I have no control over?????

Nick.

[wb9999]

I have installed it on my HTC One. I appreciated the app is free and that it may be an early version, but it was very difficult to use it. I hope the info below helps you to make some user interface changes.

The menu scrolls over the header.
The app repeatedly crashes while I entering a flight ("Unfortunately, Target Pilot Pal has stopped"). It took me 4 attempts to enter a flight.
The purple gradient background is a bit garish. Is it possible to have black text on a white background?
The logbook manager header is hidden behind the app title, so I can't see the column names.
I can't enter night and IFR partial flight times - the flight is all day or night, no part day/night. Same with IFR.
I can't seem to edit or delete a flight. I can click on a flight, but nothing else happens.
After entering the route, I have to hide the keypad to be able to continue. Scrolling doesn't move me down the page if the keypad is displayed.
If I enter a flight as PUT, how/where do I enter the captain's name?
The app keeps changing orientation. The logbook is landscape only, but flight entry is portrait only. So I have to keep turning the phone.

[Steve6443]

For info, Sky Map has this capability. You just set the stall speed of your aircraft and it logs the time from exceeding this until your speed drops below it as the time between take off until landing.... admittedly it doesn't add it to a log book app but it's easy enough to extract to Excel....

[igarratt]

So on the apple front afraid very difficult (for me) to port it to apple as lots of different code and I have no way to test it as I dont have an apple.
If anyone is good with apple apps I'd be happy to give them my source code though.

As for data growing no, the list of last flights detected will self house keep to only the last 30 (or however many you set)
The log book would grow with more flights you enter mind you.
Only other data is list of planes and list of aircraft only grow if you enter them

wb9999
-Thanks that the sort of thing I need, I tried a heap of phones but I knew there would be some that would cause problems
- Some are limitations of my code like flights that are partial ifr and partial night - think for I'll add an advanced flight entry screen, though you can enter captains name in the notes field.
-Oh and moving from field to field on flight entry can be done by the enter key on key board

I'll get a htc one and the screen sizes and give it a run to find out why some of the visuals are not the same as when I run it

Cheers

[Piper.Classique]

Second the dislike of the colour scheme......that shouldn't be too hard to change I hope? Otherwise, this looks like a good idea once the bugs are out. I don't seem to be able to get TAFS or Metars other than the raw data for a non UK airfield, though the app accepted an LF (France) airfield as home base. The met site that the app links to is heavily infested with ads and doesn't work well on a small screen.
I haven't managed to enter a flight without the app crashing.....
I entered my aircraft registration but no type, which I don't see how to do, and I
seeem to be flying a Pa 38, which is a bit strange. Kill application only backgrounds it.

So, thank you, I think this could be very good once you have got it working but it isn't currently useable for me. Running android 4.3 on a GT-N7015.

[igarratt]

Colour scheme noted, will get a new one ! but not easyjet orange !

The weather uses All met Sat by default just what we use most at base, but think I'll make it an option what site you want to use in next version

Can I ask re enter flight fault
what message you get and at what point, I cant so far get it to break no matter what I do on mine.

Aircraft type is on enter flight screen and saves last used type,

Cheers :ok:

ps could be the version, version 3 has a number of bug fixes was uploaded before i posted on here but google takes a while to give out the latest verison

[Piper.Classique]

Since it updated itself the log book is working, great stuff. Now if I could set the weather to connect to a server of my choice, and maybe automate the login, that would be pure gravy. Many thanks for your time and trouble.

[igarratt]

hey thats good news, still not being able to get it to error for me so guess one of my other fixes must have done the trick

P.s if your using the gps / watcher to auto detect flight very important to set altitude in prefs for it will think you are flying when driving, it's set in feet, I used 400 ft above airfield elevation but increase it as required to stop false flights.

So tafs and metars, the met office over here is ok but again they need a login and I don't have the skill to automate that.

A lot of the time we use allmetsat as it's helpful decode is useful and the map is handy rather than trying to remember ICAO codes for 30 airports

Next version will have ability to change your preferred web site, but I'll struggle with the login, would have to use something like
METAR TAF : Angers Marcé France (http://en.allmetsat.com/metar-taf/france.php?icao=LFJR)
or
Metars, TAFs and NOTAMs (http://www.universalweather.com/regusers/publictools/corp_comp/metar_taf_notam.html?icao=eggp) (this would add notam functions :ok:)

what do you use at your base for weather

Ian
p.s feel free to PM me be good to hear what you get up to over there

[Piper.Classique]

Hi Ian, I would normally use either Olivia for Notams, especially as it also links to the Meteo France website aviation section, if I have a decent size screen. That's free, and is what most club members use. I have a paid subscription to topmeteo, which has options for a mobile site which works better on a phone screen.
I also use an app called Aviation weather with decoder, which is good for grabbing a quick TAF or METAR, and also does NOTAMS.
I don't know where it grabs the met feed from. It looks as if Aviation Tools uses the same feed.

I use the UK met office site when flying in the UK, but mostly topmeteo when elsewhere, as not many sites I have found do reliable forecasts once further east than Germany or south of the Alps.
Besides, I have already paid for it :}

Your first site is fine on a tablet despite the ads, but a real struggle on a phone.
The universal weather won't let me past the first page, and won't let me register to use it.
I would be happy to just have a way to grab the TAFS etc, and a customizable link to my favourite site. I can live with doing my own login:ok:

Thanks for all the effort you are putting in to this!

[igarratt]

New version 4 - make sure app store has promulgated the new version before installing

In light of a number of pilots dislike of allmetsat in the preferences there is now an option to use an alternative provider

However - if your in Mainland Europe the whole app has a new European wide mode, this not only turns off allmetsat but also gives you a different full EU wide rain radar from the main menu.

Loading a TAF or Metar now automatically gives you notams for that field, if using the alternative to allmetsat or EU mode turned on.

After Piper.Classique's feedback, in preferences you can set the link on main menu -'Home Taf and Metar' to any url you like, however I hope the new Taf Metar page I've used is so good you might not need to :)

Piper.Classique re Olivia, there is a new flight planning menu, in here is a link to the Controlling authority full notams page, in the uk ours is caa / nats site as is the default but you can change yours in the preferences to Olivia's URL

Also in flight planning is a notams link for ICAO and a 3 hour rain prediction for all EU

@ all - can I ask what the most common calculation you do in daily flying, ie fuel lbs to us galls to kg to ltrs etc
speed - distance - time
adding hours up
max drift / cross wind / heading correction calcs
fuel burn / endurance calculations
etc ?
Want to add something to make pre-flight planning easier

:mad: no flying for me tomorrow due to be gusting 55 kts slightly over my ac limits :mad:

[Piper.Classique]

Wow! Do you ever sleep?