VFR flight planning and navigation software I've written

[Tim Dawson]

I don't know exactly how the GPL relates to data, but when it comes to code, if you link to any library that is licensed under the GPL, or compile in any code licensed under the GPL, you've got to also licence your own software under the GPL.

[Shunter]

Agreed. However as you rightly point out, this is data. You're not statically linking it as you would for example a library. In this particular instance I don't think the X-Plane people have given a great deal of thought to the suitability of the license to the type of material they wish to protect.

Combining propietary and GPL software has been done for many year by mobile phone and set top box manufacturers, it just requires a little thought during the implementation stage in order to ensure that whilst the 2 interact, they remain very much separate entities. A proprietary application and a GPL database would be one such example. Running CDDL licensed Solaris filesystem drivers in user space under a GPL Linux kernel would be another.

Anyway, I'm sure you've got other plans so it's most likely a moot point.

[Tim Dawson]

Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea; more data is good. Until such stage as SkyAngel "officially" supports a country, such data would be a huge benefit to those flying there and who want some support for it.

I need to get a community set up within the SkyAngel site of people who can code something up quickly to take this data and transform it into a format the software can load. It would be a great resource. I just don't want to include such data "in the box".

[Shunter]

"Novell has announced MonoTouch 1.0, a commercial SDK that allows developers to build iPhone apps using Microsoft's .Net Framework instead of the Apple-designated C or Objective-C languages. The SDK leverages Novell's Mono runtime for running Windows apps on non-Windows systems, allowing developers to utilize code and libraries written for .Net and programming languages like C#. With MonoTouch, the Mono runtime provides such developer services as garbage collection, thread management, type safety, and Web services, said Mono leader Miguel de Icaza."

There you go. Time to clean up in the world of iPhone

[XX621]

WPF?

Did you write this using .NET WPF by any chance?!

Regardless, after a few mins of use I think it's fantastic.

My only tweak would be route creation more mouse/context menu driven; i.e right click insert waypoint into route.

The FliteStar style elevation view is superb.This will take the VFR flight planning software market by storm.

[Bigglesthefrog]

Tim
This is exciting stuff and I have never seen a thread where the content is soliciting such constantly positive remarks from members of the forum. I really like the way you are listening to ideas and appreciate that it must be hard work to keep up with it like this.
For me it is timely as I have just bought a 5" touch screen colour GPS unit from Ebay for £46! for the purposes of testing out flight navigation software. I was interested in the Memory Map stand at the Sywell rally recently, but frankly couldn't get that many questions answered as there were other punters there all wanting information and only one salesman.
Without having seen your software running yet I can't comment much further, but when pilots realise that they don't have to pay silly money to get a fully functioning GPS flight planning and navigational unit and could possibly get a better unit for a fraction of the cost of those currently on the market, your project could be very successful when you go public.
When you eventually do, will you also be selling copies of "Sky Angel For Dummies"??

[mstram]

Tim,

A new release of SkyAngel has just been posted. It contains many few features, usability improvements and fixes based on feedback from here and other places.

Very nice job so far !

It would be helpful to reference the version #

I'm running the 0.9.2.27618 p.c. version.

1) If I zoom in to any area other than the UK/Ireland, the "yellow land outline", disappears turning into "blue water" (e.g. northern France, which should ?? be included in the W020N90.dem file)

2) A "zoom level" / indicator would be helpful, as well as a preference setting
for when the various map features (airports / navaids etc) are visible vs zoom / altitude. (Displaying "camera/user" altitude ala GoogleEarth would be nice, but a simple zoom level would be adequate)

3) Editing waypoints - possible now ? ..or have to delete / recreate?

4) Adding airspace via custom data ?

I added a couple of airfields / rwys for over here in Canada , took me awhile to figure out the lat/lon format. You might update "your custom data" page to indicate the format as "Nddmmss.dd Wdddmmss.dd" ... instead of the "raw" numbers that are there now



Mike

[Tim Dawson]

XX621, there's no WPF in SkyAngel right now. Thanks for your kind words about it. Could you possibly elaborate on how you'd use the mouse more to create routes? At the moment it's all mouse driven, unless you want to use the keyboard in which case you have F4.

Biggles, I'll definitely get SkyAngel InFlight working on those kinds of devices at some point. I just need to write my own GPS driver first. By the time the software is eventually released there will be a comprehensive help file, don't worry! I just want to get it to a stable point (stable as in no more significant new features or development) before I write it.

mstram, in the current release land masses disappear when zoomed in if there is no detailed coastline data loaded. This has been fixed in tomorrow's release; the less detailed edge data will be used. The terrain elevation files are not used to draw country outlines. I like the idea of some kind of zoom indicator because some people have become confused when certain entities have disappeared and there's no apparent way to get them back. I have to think about the best way to do it, though.

Editing user waypoints is possible in tomorrow's release by double-clicking them. In the current release, you have to delete and recreate.

I actually have a SkyAngel datafile for Canada which includes coastline, towns and airfields. If you want it, contact me through the SkyAngel site and I'd love to hear your feedback on it.

New release coming tomorrow with all sorts of exciting new features, such as weight & balance, notam filtering, airfield information "charts" etc etc.

[Blue Albatross]

Benelux data

If you could expand the data to include Benelux then I would be more than happy to beta test it for you.

[mstram]

I actually have a SkyAngel datafile for Canada which includes coastline, towns and airfields. If you want it, contact me through the SkyAngel site and I'd love to hear your feedback on it.


Tim,

I sent you a p.m.

Mike

[Tim Dawson]

SkyAngel 0.9.3 Released!

Hi Guys,

A new version of SkyAngel (0.9.3) has been posted on the site. This new version has lots of exciting new features and changes (detailed below). Get it while it's hot! Please note that any routes saved from a previous version probably won't load in this one due to changes in the file format.

The guys at flightnav.co.uk have produced their own dataset compatible with this release that adds loads of UK airfields beyond the ones that ship with the product. I expect they'll post on here presently telling you where to get that data.

New Features
---
Weight and Balance calculation added (automatically integrates with fuel planning)
An aircraft database is now maintained within the software for easy switching between aircraft
NOTAM filtering allows specifying of proximity to route and the dates and times you are interested in
Double-clicking an airfield now brings up a page full of information about it (including graphical depiction of runways and radio aids)
User waypoints are now editable
The units for displaying distances and speeds are configurable (nm, sm or km)
The units for displaying fuel volumes are configurable (ltr, us gal, imp gal)
There are now settings for the overall route TAS and Level on the toolbar

Data Improvements
---
Stansted TMZs added
Irish airspace data completely redone from AIP
All airfield-based radio navigation aids are now mapped
All communications frequencies associated with airfields are now known

Other Improvements/Fixes
---
Airfield-based radio navigation aids are now drawn offset from the airfield itself for clarity, like on CAA charts
The PLOG window now has a Page Setup button making it easy to specify page size and portrait/landscape preferences
Graphically plotting a route that finished where it started was not possible
Place names in Wales and Ireland are now displayed in English rather than their local variants
When dragging a route or turning point, if the mouse is released with no waypoint under the cursor and the control key is held down, a user waypoint is created
User waypoints were incorrectly labelled with their coordinates instead of their name, in the PLOG
Fuel calculations are now displayed on the PLOG
Microlighting sites are now waypoints, so you can fly by (or to) them
The allowed proximity of weather stations to the planned route can now be specified
Countries no longer disappear when zoomed in and there is no detailed data for them

I hope you all enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

[ahendry]

Flightnav Data for SkyAngle

Guys, as Tim said, this verison of SkyAngle has the ability to load all the data from Flightnav and view the latest airfield cards.

To get the data you need to follow the link below and register (as most of the people who read this forum have already register you will just need to login).

Login

Once logged in you will see all the data to download and a quick guide of how to install it.

Regards,
Alasdair

[Tone]

Hi Tim
Great stuff, it's a pleasure to use.
Niggles are getting very minor now. If you load a new aircraft its name stays as 'New Aircraft' in the drop down at the top of the screen. eg load a PA28 and it does not appear in the drop-down. Then load a C182 and behold the PA28 appears. Hope that makes sense.
May be worth adding "inches" to the CoG box just in case someone thinks litres and centimeters should go together.
Tony

[Max_UK]

It just gets better & better, great software & also very educational to a lapsed PPL renewing his interest.

I very much like the ability to click a notam & have it show up on the plan.
(Today, the Red Arrows route from Odiham to Brighton & back)

It is possible to export the waypoints in .gpx & import a route into Memory-Map (Using the CAA chart), but it will be even nicer when we can run SkyAngel InFlight on the Windows CE5 satnavs.

Thanks again Tim

Regards,

Max.

[Tim Dawson]

Is there some kind of bare-bones Windows CE5 satnav unit that you can buy without any software on? I'll be happy to buy one for the sole purpose of making sure SkyAngel InFlight runs on that kind of hardware.

[Bigglesthefrog]

Hi Tim

The changes in the software are definitely a great improvement and I have carried out a “practice” flight plan from my home base of Conington, to Waterford in Ireland, going via Gloucester and Haverford West directly in a Piper Arrow III. As I am working out of the country at the moment I won’t be able to test this out for real just at the moment.
I am running these tests on an LG laptop running Win XP Professional. If others are not experiencing what I am, then I would be grateful if they would let me know.

My observations on the present release are as follows:-

It would be good to see a standard Icon on the desktop after installation.

As far as I can see, there is only one entry for the wind, but if one wants to fly a route using different altitudes; for instance, if one wanted to plan extra altitude for water crossing, the winds aloft could be quite different from the 2000ft wind. Could the wind box be made into a drop down with spaces for other altitudes and then this is reflected in the route plan?

The weight balance box is excellent, but I found a few issues.
In Aircraft Manager/Weight balance there are the variables, fuel, pilot etc and a + and – box adjacent. I take it that this is for modifying the lever arms. When trying to increase the value I got an error message “Unhandled exception has occurred” etc and ending in (Object reference not set to an instance of an object). If I now press the Continue button the error message disappears, but if I hit the Quit button the entire SkyAngel program closes down.
Conversely, if I want to decrease the values by pressing the (-) button, the whole line, (name and lever arm) disappears.

May I suggest changing “Front Passenger” to “Copilot” as this makes a clear differentiation between front and back seats?

The Polygon is the wrong shape in the sidebar because the weight axis of its graph does not tally with the figures input to the Aircraft Properties weight/balance envelope. However, the resulting Weight/C.G is correctly indicated as a figure within the graph.

After opening a saved flight plan, the aircraft properties weight balance envelope parameters that have been personalised for a particular aircraft, return to the default value. This means that the envelope parameters have to be re-edited every time the flight plan is opened which for a particular aircraft is unnecessary.

Lastly, when double clicking on airfields to view information, I found that some runways are represented in a way that make easy viewing, but others are so big that scrolling is necessary to view them. Is it possible to standardise the sizes?

Notwithstanding any of the above, I think this package is absolutely excellent and I can’t wait to get home and try the “In Flight” part on my recently purchased Win CE loaded 5" Touch screen GPS that I bought on Ebay

Best of luck
BTF

[Torque Tonight]

Tim, great work so far. SkyAngel is taking shape really well and has potential to be a really useful bit of kit. A little feedback and a few suggestions which I hope are useful:

• When setting up parameters for a specific aircraft you can enter fuel burns and weight and balance details. It would be handy to be able to set a default normal cruise speed and altitude in the aircraft file. I can't see a way of doing this at the moment. As someone else already mentioned, the name of the custom aircraft is not shown in the menu, just 'New Aircraft'.
• You have many ground features on the map especially masts that cannot be selected as waypoints. I know you can right click to create a new waypoint on top of the ground feature but if the feature is worth showing on the map it is likely to be used as a turning point. It would therefore save a few nanoseconds if they were selectable as waypoints just as airfields, VRPs, navaids are.
• When creating waypoints can we have the option of using British National Grid references as well as Lat-Long. I think there are free software components (dll's?) on the Ordnance Survey website for embedding in software like yours to convert coordinates.
• Sometimes it would be handy to be able to select a leg to be flown at a height AGL rather than an altitude or Flight Level. Some of my legs take me from areas of high to low ground elevation and I may choose to fly at a constant height rather than altitude.
• My password never arrived. I registered and was told that I would receve a email with a password but it never turned up (not in my spam/junk folder either). I tried to register again, and it said my email address was already registered (so it must be in the system), and that I should select the forgotten password reminder option if necessary - however I can't find this anywhere.
• Total times and distances would be useful.
• And finally an incredibly minor point: the filetype names are a bit clunky (.flightplan and .aircraft). Shouldn't they normally be three or four letters?

Please take these points as constructive feedback and not criticism. I thinks this is awesome so far.

[Tim Dawson]

Thanks Biggles for the comprehensive feedback. The TAS, Level and Wind shown in the toolbar are global to the route being flown, but you can double-click on any route segment (either in the main map or in the route plan window) to bring up properties specific to that route segment. You can fly them all with different winds/speeds/levels or leave them as "global" which is convenient for shorter trips.

The + and - in weight and balance are for modifying an aeroplane by adding and removing loading points. Perhaps your plane has separate baggage stores, or fuel tanks with different lever arms. If you just want to modify a lever arm, select that row in the grid and then click on the lever arm text and it will become editable. I've been trying to reproduce the crash you mentioned in this editor but I haven't had any success (failure?) so could you please elaborate on how you managed this? If you want to change Front Passenger to Copilot you can just do it by editing the text. This is, after all, how you define your own aeroplane.

If the polygon is the wrong shape, you've entered the wrong weights and lever arms! Bear in mind that the weight axis on that graph is always shown in kg, whereas perhaps you've changed the general display of weight to lbs. Is that the confusion here?

You're right that saving a route plan should save any values entered in the weight & balance, and at the moment it does not.
Regarding the display of runways in the airfield information page, this is difficult. If you have a long north-south runway you're either going to have to scroll to see it all, or display it tiny. I am of course open to suggestions

Glad you're enjoying it.

[Tim Dawson]

Torque,

I had no idea that people wanted to navigate by fixed obstructions on the ground. If the prevailing opinion is that this is needed, I'll have to do some internal re-jigging of SkyAngel to make this possible. I'll await further feedback.

For the moment I can't support different coordinate systems. Maybe after the first release, if this turns out to be something many people want.

Ah, flying a leg at a height rather than an altitude. I was hoping nobody would be interested in doing this because how SkyAngel works internally is totally not geared towards this right now. I'm planning a complete vertical navigation implementaiton at some point in the future (departing from the simple set-altitude-per-route-segment I have now) and this will have to wait until then. Unfortunately.

Regarding your registration details, could you contact me via the contact link on the website at the bottom? I'll be able to forward your welcome email to you then. Oh, and file extensions haven't had to be 3 or 4 characters since 1995 I for one embrace more descriptive extensions, especially as most people don't even see them.

Feels like I've been a bit negative in this reply; unfortunately you've hit almost all the things that SkyAngel just can't currently do.

[Torque Tonight]

Don't worry, thanks for taking the time to reply Tim. My programming skills couldn't even come close to what you have achieved. Regarding my suggestions such as OSGB coords and height AGL, if there are good technical reasons why they would be difficult then so be it - thanks for explaining the difficulties. None of my points are biggies (except the password issue which I'll email you about shortly).

As for the custom aircraft snags, hopefully that isn't to tricky to fix.

I had no idea that people wanted to navigate by fixed obstructions on the ground. If the prevailing opinion is that this is needed, I'll have to do some internal re-jigging of SkyAngel to make this possible. I'll await further feedback.

In the area where I did some of my early flying training two notable ground features were the Stokenchuch mast and Didcot power station. Being visble from a distance of about 50 miles on a good day, these made very popular waypoints on VFR navigation exercises. I think a lot of people would choose to use such features. At the moment I am just creating a waypoint on top of the feature, so it's no show stopper.

Keep up the good work!