VFR flight planning and navigation software I've written

[Tim Dawson]

SkyAngel 0.9.6 Released!

A new version of the SkyAngel software has been posted for download. Here's a list of the improvements in this version:

Data
----
All runway and VHF frequency data for UK military airfields is now included
Some UK VRPs were missing; all should now be included

Plan
----
The map context menu now has a link directly to Google Maps
The GPX exported routes have been improved; many devices would not import the data previously exported
Double-clicking a .flightplan file will now open SkyAngel with that route loaded

InFlight
----
After panning the chart when in "follow" mode, the chart returns to following after 10 seconds
When a route is loaded the map jumps to the start point
GPS settings have been dramatically improved to aid diagnostics
Insert in Route option added to the waypoint context menu

Tim

[ILOC]

Hi Tim,

Talking of hardware, it would be great if InFlight could be compiled to run on plain old Windows too so people could run it on Tablet PCs.

Quite a few people use tablets so I'm sure the effort would be appreciated and PocketFMS (I guess one of your main competitors) supports this.

[thesandfly]

Fantastic

Tim,
As a geriatric, non computer literate pilot the simplicity of the old flight manager programme was my constant companion. Now long out of date it is retained merely since no subsequent offering has come close to providing a simple, clear, authoritive and comprehensive level of info and detail. Now along comes your offering, it is fantastic. If I can find my way to use it anyone can. You have clearly spent much time and effort in producing Skyangel and also in taking on board pilots suggestions that enable rough edges to be smoothed out.
I think I can speak for many in wishing you every success when you launch commercially, I for one will be rushing to buy. An excellent aid, thank you.
TSF

[yakker]

Tim, great piece of software. But I have a query. When planning a route, say Daventry VOR to West Wales. You will pass over/through Wellesbourne, but the flight plan will not pick up the frequency for Wellesbourne. At first I thought it was because I had planned to fly over Wellesbourne at 3000', but if I reduce this to 1500', the frequency is not picked up even though the planned route takes me through their airspace. This appears to happen on some planned routes but not others.

[Tim Dawson]

Fixed, thanks. It was because it was an AFIS service.

[WorkingHard]

Tim, how do I get the route plan to accept MY aircraft with speeds and fuel burn please? It does seem to default to the demo aircraft whch I have already changed but still get the wrong figures in the route plan.

many thanks

[Tim Dawson]

What figures are you talking about? If you just select your aircraft from the dropdown on the main toolbar, all relevant parameters (fuel, weight and balance) should propagate themselves into your plan.

If this is not happening, please give some more detail about exactly what aircraft you have defined, what route you have defined, what values you're expecting to see where and what values you actually DO see where. Thanks!

[jxk]

Tim -
Planned a flight from Thruxton skirting around the Southampton Zone: Andover - Chilbolton - Romsey VRP - Totton VRP - Beaulieu Disused - Cowes - Ryde - Hayling Island - Popham - Thruxton.
Observations: 1. Solent Radar frequency not included in FP Log ie 120.225 - 2. Cowes not on Map - 3 Ryde not on coast - 4 Portsmouth shown in the middle of Southampton Water.
I would like to add the private airfield I fly from to the map but can only indicate this as a waypoint; it would nice to add private airfields with their techinical details eg freq r/w phone no etc...
Hope you don't mind these minor points just trying to test the programme.
PS Wouldn't it be more appropriate to add these comments to the SkyAngel website? But how?.

[Tim Dawson]

Thanks jxk. Solent Radar seems to have gone away; not sure where but it's not listed as a service anywhere in the AIP that I can find, therefore it's not in SkyAngel. I had thought they offered a LARS but perhaps I'm wrong about that.

Your points about towns being slightly misplaced are of course valid but not fixable by me right now; they're the data that I have. This will of course improve in the future. This week you'll get lakes, railways, roads and urban areas on the map but some town waypoints will still be slightly awry.

There is a facility to add custom data in SkyAngel; see the URL below for more information. Hopefully this week I'll manage to get a forum online on the SkyAngel site specifically for such discussions.
SkyAngel Custom Data Information

[mikehallam]

Has SkyAngel website temporarily gone down ?
My browser keep coming up unobtainable.
Perhaps the whole site is under reconstruction or ?
Mike Hallam

[JW411]

Well Solent were still there yesterday; I spoke to them on two separate occasions and received a basic service.

[Tim Dawson]

Mike, there's been no scheduled maintenance to the site and it seems to be working at the moment.
JW: I know, me too!

[CessnaCJM]

Woodley?

I hope you dont mind another question - I flight planned from Shoreham to Turweston via Woodley NDB - the flight plan generated a NDB frequency etc for Blackbushe as its close to the track, but not Woodley which is a waypoint - a minor issue I know but thought you should be aware. Thanks for this PLOG programme its saving me hours!

[Tim Dawson]

Thanks Cessna; some effort has been spent on making the PLOG frequency selction more clever this week and I can confirm that Woodley is now included in that route.

[CessnaCJM]

Its still not on the one that I did again this morning. Do I need to download a later version, mine is a few weeks old? Thanks again.

[Tim Dawson]

Apologies for being unclear; SkyAngel builds are released on Thursdays and this week's is not yet released.

[Eric T Cartman]

Hi Tim
Installed & working well on HTC Touch HD
A couple of corrections - the Glide Path angles for Runways 21 & 31 @ Prestwick should be 3.5 Deg. Keep up the great work please!

[Tim Dawson]

Thanks Eric. We don't actually have any data for glidepath angles, so we just made a default of 3.0 and allow the user to change it easily.

[Tim Dawson]

SkyAngel 0.9.7 Released!

Hi guys,

There's a new version of SkyAngel available. The most significant changes this week are data improvements, but there are some usability improvements too. Here's the breakdown:

Data
----
Lakes, roads, railways and urban areas are now mapped
Obstruction data is now available for the USA
We now have initial data support for Sweden
Airways in the UK are now pulled from our own data
Flightnav data is now included, bringing many smaller airfields and farm strips in the UK

Plan
----
Exporting directly from Plan to Garmin devices is now supported
NOTAMs can now be copied and pasted in from websites for any FIR
It is now possible to hide airfields whose longest runway is shorter than a specified value
Selection of frequencies for display on the PLOG has been improved

InFlight
--------
Zoom buttons are now displayed as primary instruments onscreen
Position report feature gives an at-a-glance "9 nm N of Waypoint" position report
It is now possible to visually plot circular routes
Drawing of the coastline can now be disabled, leading to better performance for inland flights
Clicking on the ETA instrument changes the display to ETE (and back again)

[Captain-Random]

Mr Dawson,

Well done on such a great piece of software.

Do you have a desktop icon you could post so that it looks as good on the desktop as it is inside the programme?

Also is there a way to add the route features box to the printable plog?

C-R