VFR flight planning and navigation software I've written

[Bigglesthefrog]

Hi ft
Whilst I think that the Google Chrome user interface is good and the browser has some nice touches, it is not without a few bugs
I recently discovered this when I found that our group website booking sheet would not display the availability page properly. Not just slightly, but really badly!! Friends of mine have similar stories and some have gone back to Firefox.

[ft]

Biggles,
you knew I'd have to go try it in Firefox now, didn't you?

ESAA (SWEDEN FIR) Top
A0377/09 NOTAMN Q) ESAA/QXXXX/I /NB /E /000/999/6156N01713E999 A) ESAA B) 0910160838 C) 0911192359 E) NEW CFMU AFTN ADDRESSES EUCHZMFP AND EUCBZMFP ARE OPERATIONAL. OLD CFMU AFTN ADDRESSES ARE PLANNED TO BE DISCONTINUED WEF. 22 OCT 2009. REF AIC A10/08 AND ENR 1.11 AIP AIRAC AMDT. 121/09
A0382/09 NOTAMN Q) ESAA/QANCH/I /NBO/E /285/460/6156N01713E999 A) ESAA B) 0911190000 C) PERM E) RNAV ROUTE UP850 FL285-FL460 CHANGE OF FLIGHT LEVEL ALLOCATION AS FLW: NORTHEASTBOUND SUTOK-BAKIL ODD, SOUTHWESTBOUND BAKIL-SUTOK EVEN. REF AIP PAGE ENR 3-3-32 WEF 19 NOV 2009 F) FL285 G) FL460
A0388/09 NOTAMR A0340/09 Q) ESAA/QKKKK/K /K /K /000/999/6156N01713E999 A) ESAA B) 0911011014 C) 0912011014 EST E) CHECKLIST YEAR=2008 0285 YEAR=2009 0014 0236 0237 0302 0329 0366 0374 0376 0377 0382 LATEST PUBLICATIONS AIP AIRAC AMDT IFR 121/2009 EFFECTIVE DATE 19 NOV 09 AIP AIRAC SUP IFR 003/2009 EFFECTIVE DATE 09 APR 09 AIP SUP IFR 023/2009 EFFECTIVE DATE 15 OCT 09 AIC IFR A008/2009 EFFECTIVE DATE 28 MAY 09
B0457/09 NOTAMN Q) ESAA/QARCS/IV/NBO/E /285/460/5558N01715E020 A) ESAA B) 0905070000 C) PERM E) ATS RNAV ROUTE UM990 SEGMENT KOLJA-GISON IMPLEMENTED AS FLW: KOLJA 560000.0N 0164852.8E - GISON 555554.0N 0174206.0E, TRUE TR 097/278, DIST 56KM/30NM, VER LIMITS FL285/FL460, ODD LEVELS EB EVEN WB, BIDIRECTIONAL.

Uh-oh.

Cheers!
/Fred

[Tim Dawson]

All right, all right. Done.

[Tim Dawson]

As development of SkyAngel decreases because of the upcoming release, I'd really like to get some feedback about how you'd like to see the software distributed.

Most importantly, are you interested in Plan, InFlight or both?

There would be advantages to packaging the two together, or at least making Plan a requirement of InFlight, because Plan has the richness to make dealing with data updates much easier (it could automatically pass them on to InFlight via ActiveSync). I'm aware that many people will have no use for InFlight because they already have a decent GPS solution, so I don't want to force it on anyone who only wants Plan.

Assuming that whatever you bought (Plan, InFlight or both) came with a year of data updates on the AIRAC cycle and also software improvements, what would you expect to pay?

[Tim Dawson]

SkyAngel 0.9.10 Released!

Hi guys, this week's SkyAngel build has been released. As always, details of the new features are below, but in particular I'd like to ask anybody who previously attempted to export a route to their Garmin GPS device and had it fail, to try again and let me know what happens. Cheers.

Data
---
Terrain elevation data accuracy greatly improved
Scottish towns now appear plotted on the map according to their population
Dense groups of the same type of obstruction are now automatically thinned out

InFlight
---
Documentation is now published for the SkyAngel InFlight product (accessible from the download page)
You can now configure how many minutes ahead are shown in the approaching features instrument
A bug introduced in the 0.9.9 release where some devices could not run InFlight at all has been fixed

Plan
---
Route creation user interface improved to support dragging the route anywhere, not just to waypoints
Exporting directly from Plan to Magellan devices is now supported

[Andy H]

This is such a good program that I hesitate to criticise it al all. However, I do have an improvement to suggest.

The weight & Balance graph is a most useful feature when planning a trip. However, could we have two little crosses - one with full tanks and one with empty tanks? Or even, a little gold plated this, one with the weight on arrival?

Looking forward to this !

Andy H

[Tim Dawson]

SkyAngel 0.9.11 Released!

The good news this week is that we now fully support France, with most of its data available this week and completion by next week. We'll be moving into the rest of Europe after that. Here's the breakdown of changes in today's release:

Data
---
France data has been fully rewritten to first-class standard (some radio aids still TBD)
Ireland data improved with better runway, frequency and radio aid information
Towns are now more accurately placed where before there could be a position error of up to one mile

Plan
---
Enroute navigation aids could be omitted from the PLOG when they should be included
A new option has been added to map clipping to omit obstructions below a given height
Terrain rendering speed improved, especially for areas of North America
Class E airspace is now depicted with green colours, to distinguish it from class B, C and D airspace

InFlight
---
Adjustment of the map font size is now possible



P.S. Andy that's a great idea, I'll see what I can do.

[MFC_Fly]

Have I missed something?

Just visited the SkyAngel website to see it is now called SkyDemon - or has the site been hacked?

[Tim Dawson]

We've had to change the name ready for release. There's a car satnav company with a broad trademark that made using the SkyAngel name too risky.

[Donalk]

Tim - I presume distribution would be direct and not through resellers. In this case you might consider offering Plan and InFlight as stand alone products with a bundle price for Plan and InFlight.

For me I would only be interested in Plan as I have a very good GPS solution (glass cockpit) but if the bundle proposition were attractive enough it might be tempting to have some redundancy.

Assuming that whatever you bought (Plan, InFlight or both) came with a year of data updates on the AIRAC cycle and also software improvements, what would you expect to pay?

This is the tricky one. For me it would need to include rest of Europe and I suspect that most 'continent' based pilots would feel the same. With UK and France data it does have an immediate market in the UK but is limited for the rest of us.

Having said that it is a superb product and if you get rest of Europe completed in a timely fashion then it looks like you will have a winner. Pricing I guess would need to be competitive and pitched against the competition. Would FliteStar be the closest comparison and if so would you charge a premium for additional functionality or enhanced service levels.

These are the commercial decisions you face but the product speaks for itself.

[Tim Dawson]

Thanks for the feedback Donalk. We've already got Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg data done and we'll have Germany data done this week too. If you check the Countries page on the site, they'll be available very soon.

[Tim Dawson]

SkyDemon 0.9.12 Released!

Hi Guys,

This week's release has been posted. I'm happy to say we've reached a level of stability where there should only be one or possibly two more releases before version 1 is finished. This week we've added support for Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Luxembourg and all this data is available for download right now from the website (www.skydemon.aero).

Just a couple of very minor changes this week:

Visibility of instrument reporting points and visual reporting points is now independently controlled in Plan
Solved the "route truncated" problem with exporting routes to Garmin devices from Plan

Tapping the aeroplane hexagon now brings up a position report, meaning you don't have to go through the menu, in InFlight

Enjoy!

Tim

[IO540]

Direct sales is THE way to go these days, on every product which can be sold online.

Dealers are too slow to take up new products, and if you start selling via dealers, they will quickly spot that you are a newbie and will try to screw you into an exclusivity deal, which puts you into a politically difficult situation because if you say NO (which as a prudent businessman you must) the dealer will go off in a huff and will not come back.

One has to inflate - at the outset - the end user price by some 30%, because dealers will come on board later, when they have seen the product's success. They will then come on board much more on your terms The 30% is their reseller discount.

Been there, done that, many times since 1978

[chrisN]

Tim, are gliding sites supposed to have disappeared? Can't see mine (Ridgewell) or another close by (Gransden Lodge) that used to be visible in Plan.

Chris N.

[Tim Dawson]

IO540, I agree. But don't forget that although we've never developed flight-planning software before, my company has been developing and selling software products online for years. I've no doubt that resellers will pick up SkyDemon software products before very long, but there's absolutely no reason for us not to sell direct either. This has always been my preferred way of selling; cut out the middleman and everybody wins. Are you in the software industry too?

Chris, they haven't disappeared. Ensure you've got sporting sites turned on, on the map toolbar. Your options will probably have been lost if you were using the software before because of the name change this week.

[feldmeir]

microsoft 5ce

I have been playing around with a Chinese navigation
UMPC with 5ce on it, have been unable to get Skydemon to work. Was wondering if you have had any luck with this sort of equipement. Does not like loading the NET software.

Feldmeir

[IO540]

A little bit but mostly it's hardware; factory automation / industrial comms.

[chrisN]

Thanks, Tim. Chris N.

[simon-M]

Ancient OS!

I love the flight plan software and really want to try out the in-flight version. unfortunately my iPAQ PDA only runs windows mobile 2003. Does anyone know if there's any way of upgrading this to windows mobile 5.0 so I can try the software out?
Cheers

[IO540]

Does anyone know if there's any way of upgrading this to windows mobile 5.0 so I can try the software out?

Do a google on putting wm5 onto your particular PDA. There is a lot of stuff on the internet on this. WM5 works for some devices; not for others.

WM is a pile of cr*p anyway, but on a PDA you are probably stuck with it. I have a Fuji LOOX PDA running WM5 and it is almost OK. The FLASH based application storage is a big improvement. Still needs a regular reset though