Skydemon reliability
 

SD is a great product and the CAA seems to be waking up to the fact it (and other GPS systems) are critical for the prevention of airspace conflicts. We all seem to be relying on it more and more. Some people seem to have stopped carrying charts.

I have only ever had one hiccup with it while threading the gap between Heathrow and Wycombe the dreaded 'no data' message came up . Fortunately it resolved itself quickly and I also had a marked chart to hand.

My question is, has anyone else ever had it fail in flight? Do we all trust it now to use as primary nav?

At our level without automatic GPS assurances, I think the Sky Demon should be used as an aid to navigation whilst still relying on the basics of a plan, a map and stopwatch

Had the tablet fail a number of times. Sometimes because it ran out of battery and sometimes because it lost signal

Each time it happened at a fairly inconvenient moment, so I try not to rely on it, just in case. While it works it is superb, but the software relies on a good hardware platform, and that is the weakness.

Always have a backup plan (not necessarily a second tablet!)

The question is not "how reliable is <this or that bit of software>" but rather "how reliable is the complete set of hardware, software, and data". I have no experience, still flying with paper maps, but as I read the forums it seems to me that the SD software and data are quite ok, but tablets are not always very reliable. Even the expensive ones seem to be prone to overheating issues, as I understand.

All these mobile moving map devices do have frequent hickup! Most of the times you won't notice, as the hard- and software vendors tend to smooth the glitches out. The old margins to fly how close to an airspace boundary did not change to the old days of paper maps, but I see more and more pilots going really close to the edge now. That is not what was meant with the devices!

In my experience it's PARTICULARLY the expensive ones.

I'm running SD the latest spec Ipad mini paired up to a Garmin GLO bluetooth reciever and I've yet to see any glitching or crashes, although I do hold off on IOS updates until they've been around for a few weeks (I'm not 100% confident in Apples' release testing!). It sits in my Ipad kneeboard and is usually covered over so it's not too distracting. I'll flip the cover and have a look during a FREDA check.

I also have it installed and ready to go on my android phone.

And the third tier backup is a quarter mill paper chart with the route drawn!

Poll results on the Other Side. https://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=101332

Yes.

Yes*


* With the caveat that like any nav system (including and especially map and stopwatch), crosschecks should be done where able.

I don't use SD, I use other things - all of which have failed on me at some point.

Learning to fly, no: use the way you are taught as primary nav.

For qualified pilots - absolutely use moving map GPS as primary nav, it's very good for it. Skydemon is a good package - that I don't use it is just my personal choice.

Just don't ever let yourself get sucked into using it as your sole navigational source. A printed out PLOG and paper chart are perfectly adequate as a backup, so long as you use them.

Actually that was the statistical baseline. Reduced results are here...

https://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=101348

G

Overheating IPad
 

Not a Skydemon issue directly, but I have twice had my IPad Mini shut down due to overheating while running Skydemon. This happened in France in the summer and cockpit teperature was high because of the greenhouse effect of all the plexiglass in a R44 cockpit. Worth bearing in mind.

Thanks, @FlyingMac, this is news to me. Could you differentiate between "tablets from more expensive makes" vs. "the more expensive models of most tablet makers"?

To be frank, all overheating reports I saw as yet were about one particular make, not exactly the cheapest...

With the iPad, I found when flying the Bulldog (bubble canopy) that the black-bezel version would get incredibly hot whereas my wife's white-bezel version would remain relatively cool (actually still quite hot but nowhere near as hot as my black version).

I did some side by side tests on my patio table in the sun and mine would keel over long before hers would. So my replacement iPad Mini was a white one. :ok: Clearly not all iPads are the same :cool:

Loss of sattelites
 

Curious incident today, uncontrolled airspce between Gardemoen ENGM and Oslo City. Two separate SD 's running in iPad simultaneously lost satellite fix. One is internal GPS, the other a bluetooth dongle. Both we're working normally after landing (10 mins later). Panel mount 430 unaffected.

What would cause this? There were no radio changes in this period. Maybe someone in Norway knows a reson?

GPS dropouts are known to happen in Norway, some due to rock formation, others by terrain. You should file a report with location and time to GPS.gov: GPS Service Outages & Status Reports . What they don't know, they can't fix.
If I remember correctly even a notice for the unreliability of GPS in certain areas of Norway is in their AIP.
As sensitivity of the panel GPS is better, I would expect to fail the iDevices first.

Just for balance, I've witnessed the opposite. Loss of signal on a panel mount 430 whilst the iPad worked just fine.

Skydemon running on an iPad Mini (white, for what difference it may make) and powered by a Pilotaware.

Never had either drop out in the air (and am very impressed with it), but was playing with it on the ground yesterday and the GPS dropped out for no reason. Came back on after turning the Pilotaware off and on and reconnecting - in reality was out of GPS for no more than a minute or so which - at 115kts - isn't that critical.

I carry 2 power supplies (as well as the ship's cigarette lighter), a dual output cigarette lighter, Long and short iPhone leads and USB leads as well as my Phone (iPhone with Skydemon and inbuilt GPS) and a map.

I think i'm pretty much covered.

My black iPad mini and skydemon is yet to let me down - I always mark up the chart and write out the PLOG the way I like to (I don't like the printable SD one) so should it fail there would be no worries.

Being near Stansted it helps me be certain not to wander into their airspace - A friend of mine was accused of infringing and the tracker on SD proved that he hadn't. Without that proof I'm sure he would have been in some hot water as it would have been a case of his word against theirs.

SD for flight planning ON Ground load into Garmin for navigation..