Pocket FMS or Skydemon

[jxc]

At the moment I have been using pocket fms but subscription is due again should i jump and use Skydemon ?
any recommendations ?
mainly flying in uk trips to france

[pa28r driver]

Sky Demon

cant praise sky demon enough..........really excellent piece of kit
easiest planner ive used.....pc version that is but have heard that demon in flight is equally as good
regards to all

[VMC-on-top]

Ditto the above re Sky Demon - excellent!

[EC-]

I didn't know about this Skydemon software, and it look very interesting. But I have a question, can it be used as a moving map GPS like PocketFMS? It's not clear for me after reading their web.It seems it is the case for the 'InFlight' version, but it runs under Windows CE or Mobile and I would like to use it in a notebook with XP instead.

If it were possible, it would be a very good alternative to Pocket FMS at a sensible lower price.

[jxc]

I believe looking at it that it only works inflight as you say but in their questions page they say they are working on it for use on tablets etc

[EC-]

Yes, I'm reading just now the FAQ and it's clear now. My fault for asking before reading the FAQ

[Baron Von Mildred]

Skydemons main issue is that not many countries are supported. PocketFMS has worldwide data, but having said that, the data for some parts is fairly dodgey. I fly in central Africa and found that pocketFMS had all the rivers missing in Zambia, plus an International airport! There are some pretty big rivers in Zambia!

[AndyGB]

I tried PocketFMS a couple of years ago however I didn't take it up as I found the interface rather confusing and not very intuitive. Contrast that with Sky Demon where I was able to plan routes within 10 minutes of firing it up.

Obviously the PocketFMS interface may have changed since I looked at it, but my money is still with SD for ease of use.

[Ptkay]

Use PocketFMS since 5 years without problems.

Very useful and complete database superior to Garmin in some ways (at least where I fly).

[RVFlyer]

Skydemon technical support

Is non-existant, they don't ofer a professional backup or any real help.

I tried to get it running on a new piece of hardware and basically got told to run and jump.

Beware of their 'supported' hardware list - it's not properly verified- don't buy hardware unless you know for certain works.

Caveat Emptor

[Tim Dawson]

To clarify the rather ill-thought-out post by RVFlyer above, and his other recent post where he referred to SkyDemon as a "piece of junk".

SkyDemon should run on any Windows Mobile/Windows CE hardware produced in recent years, that has the Microsoft .net Compact Framework installed. We also offer excellent technical support and do so frequency. Occasionally problems are encountered by customers and these are swiftly rectified.

However.

Many of these devices are not intended to run custom or arbitrary software. They are often car satnavs. We're here to help you use SkyDemon, not to help you crack your piece of hardware so that it'll run arbitrary software. This is in no small part because we know absolutely nothing about doing it, and nor should we; we're a software company. There are hundreds of these devices out there, and for the moment, you'll need to take some responsibility for this part of the process.

At some point we'll have dedicated hardware units with SkyDemon pre-installed.

[Up and down]

The Skydemon website is very clear that there are a lot of different devices out there, and tells you to try the software out to see if it works before buying.

Since you can download a full version before deciding to buy I can't see that they can do much more.

I've got both plan and inflight, and think they're excellent.

[topoverhaul]

I have no experience of Skydemon, but I can say I am an enthusiastic user of Pocket FMS. I use it on two widescreen Navman Car SatNavs which I bought for £70 each. I use it 90 degree rotated and appreciate the track up look ahead functionality which the devices using CAA charts can't emulate.

[AussieNick]

hey Top, how did you go about installing pocketfms onto the car GPS?

[stuartforrest]

I have used PocketFMS for a few years and I agree that the interface is quite confusing but it has lots and lots of features.

I learned it by getting it connected to Microsoft Flight Sim (there is an output but it is quite tricky to get working) and had it on my laptop while I flew various flights on the sim. I then got to practice loads of different scenarios.

I use it on a tablet pc with a touch screen. It was hopeless on a pocket pc. Way too small and slow but on thr tablet it is pretty damn good.

I have tried Sky Demon. I am just waiting for them to release the rumoured PC version. The current pc version is only for planning but does not have gps. It is certainly more graphically pleasing that PFMS but I am not sure how it will live up to the feature set of PFMS.

[Tim Dawson]

Hi Stuart,

A number of people are using a preview of the PC version with inflight functionality, and you'd be most welcome to try it if you get in touch with us through the website. We would appreciate your feedback.

[dublinpilot]

Originally Posted by AussieNick

hey Top, how did you go about installing pocketfms onto the car GPS?

Aussie,

First thing is that the car sat nav must operate on the WinCE system. That rules out Garmin and TomTom sat nav's.

For many many others, PocketFMS will just run without any hacking or adjustments. You simply put an SD card into your PC card reader, and select "Prepare SD Card" in PocketFMS PC version, follow the instructions, and it will prepare the card for you. You then simply put the SD card into the car sat nav and reset it.

There is a forum especially for known supported devices on the PocketFMS forums. Also in the other forums, many users will tell about their likes/dislikes of particular models.

The forums can be found here.

Click here for PocketFMS forums

I hope that answers your question!

dp

[First_Principal]

First thing is that the car sat nav must operate on the WinCE system. That rules out Garmin and TomTom sat nav's.

Hmmm, could be the case with later TomTom's perhaps but I have a WinCE 4.2 device running TomTom software so I guess that implies at least some of them could work....

If you're in Oz then some of the Unidens are worth looking at, the two or three I've seen run WinCE & they're often reasonably priced. It's generally easy to bring up Windows Explorer on these things and run an application from there if you're wanting to experiment with something - use a second SD card though & keep the original as a backup in case you mess up!

[dublinpilot]

Ah thanks for that!

I had understood that none of the TomTom units were WinCE.

[First_Principal]

I believe some of them use Linux but a quick look on the 'net hasn't revealed exactly what the others use. Given this device isn't actually a TomTom I can't categorically state these other [TomTom's] are WinCE but I thought it might imply that since their software worked on this WinCE 4.2 GPS....

Anyway I'm interested to find out myself now so if I come across anything I'll pass on the info - I see you're reasonably active on the Pockfms forums so I guess it could be of some use.

Cheers, FP.