Tim.

I don't seem to be able to change the "Weather station proximity to route distance" it's set to 15 nm but when I type in a new figure and click ok then close it, it defaults back to 15.

I fly from Caernarfon and we always use Valley weather so I'd like that to display.

When generating a route plan from Caernarfon to where ever, I'd like Valley frequencies to display on the printed plan as well. Is this possible?

Using the latest V.0.9.7.21959

Thanks.

CR, cheers, artwork hasn't been done yet but should make an appearance before v1 is finished. There's no way to get the enroute features display ont he PLOG I'm afraid.

Robin Driver, 15nm is the maximum distance from the route in which SkyAngel can look for features (including weather stations) at the moment. Unfortunately there is no way to specify that a certain radio station is always included on the PLOG either; this is something I want to get done in a post-v1 release.

Another question... Is there anyway to save the PLOG as a word doc so that it can be saved and printed off another pc without the main programme? (I rarely have ink in my printer)

You can download a free PDF printer application such as primoPDF then print to the PDF printer and transfer the resultant PDF file to another PC.

There are two ways of accomplishing what you want:

1. Right click the document -> view source -> save, this will save as a .html document that can be viewed on any computer.

2. Print to XPS or PDF or Document Writer or any other print-to-file facility available in the list of "printers" that you can choose from. This is what those facilities are designed for; so that you can take that file to another computer and print it there.

If you can code it for Macs then possibly an iPhone app would be the next move? I've just downloaded a program for my iPhone called copilot for £12 which has 10% of the features SkyAngel has. You could price it double that of copilot, make an absolute killing and I'd be your first customer!

I love it, I'm still trying to work it all out but at first impression, I'm extremely impressed.:ok:

Hi All,

I was just wondering what kind of hardware you are running Sky Inflight on? Any recommendations?

Thanks
rdbc

SkyAngel 0.9.8 Released!
 

A new version of SkyAngel, version 0.9.8, has been posted. This version has mainly bug fixes but there are some data and functionality improvements too. Note that in Plan, I have changed some of the colours in this release to match the CAA charts. This is an experiment: if most people prefer the old colours, I'll switch back in the next release. Please let me know!

Also note that there is now a forum on the SkyAngel website for discussion of the product, compatible GPS devices, suggestions for future features etc.

In this release:

Data
----
Spot elevations now included on chart and in MSA calculations
UK FIS sector information now included so London Info will appear in PLOG

InFlight
--------
Data loading time halved
Fixed "invalid land polygon" bug that some people were experiencing

Plan
----
Scale added to main map
Save option added to PLOG viewer, to facilitate editing of default output
3D terrain shading colours are now rounded, making it useful for determining elevation while still retaining shading
The default (first) aircraft can now be removed
More intelligent selection of frequencies included on PLOG

Tim,

Just keeps getting better.
However where is the A14 from the M1/M6 junction to the A1 at Huntingdon?

Absolutely astounding bit of kit. Thanks Tim.:ok:

Love it well done A++++++++

I notice you keep updating it, do i have to keep downloading a new one or does it up date by itself??
any help?

but it is a great product

How to get terrain for Nevada
 

I live in Nevada, near Reno. I've installed the USA dem file, and the California one. I can see terrain in CA, but not in NV. There was no file for NV. Where do they come from, how are they made, etc? How do I get to see the terrain and airports for NV?

Thanks,
NVFlyingMonkey

yakker, if a road is missing it means it's older than the public-domain vector map data I'm using. For the moment there isn't much I can do about this.

Daultonio, at the moment it's being updated every week (not this week though) and requries you to uninstall your old one, and install the new one. There will be automatic updates in a future version.

cct, I'm looking into that bug, a few people have reported it and I haven't yet gotten to the bottom of it.

NVFlyingMonkey, I'll post the Nevada file this coming weekend along with a few more states. I haven't quite decided yet how I'm going to bundle USA data together.

Hi Tim,

I love the software. I bought Flitestar VFR this year and have given up with it despite the cost as it was just too complicated and slow to do anything. Your software is far more intuitive and gives all the information and more that I want.

Thanks
Steve
:ok:

Hi Tim,

The A14 section between the M1/M6 and the A1 was opened in 1994. So its your vector map data thats old.

Er yes, that's what I meant.

I've loaded this on my laptop and reckon its brilliant, are you recommending a portable device for inflight use? I have an iPaq 314 which has now died for the second time and although it's a great piece of kit I won't chance it failing again and would like to replace it with something that will run your software in flight. Obviously a large screen would be good maybe 5" - 7" is there something that would suit?

Tim, more congratulations on producing a great application,and thank you for the great convenience. I'd like to contribute a few suggestions.

I very much like the new chart colouring in 0.9.8.

The ability to print the chart view would be greatly advantageous for route familiarisation before flights. I fully accept the need to have a CAA chart plotted and in the cockpit always, but the subset of information which could be printed from SkyAngel would be very convenient pre-flight.

Is there any argument against printing out the wonderful en-route features? This will be a huge safety feature and a great help to all of us.

Can I set my home airfield (Conington in my case) as the centre of the screen on start-up? I don't often get down to the wilds of the beautiful south-west!

When I double-click on a route segment, I get an unhandled exception error - which is a surprising outcome. When I select 'Continue' and then enter new altitude and speed for that segment, the values don't appear to be accepted. Am I doing something wrong?

I hope these help, and I'm pleased to be able to contribute to the development of such a useful and well-designed product. I'm running it on the 'production' version of Windows 7 Professional without any difficulty, by the way.

Thanks OldVicar, there's a bug in the 0.9.8 release whereby you'll get that exception if you double-click on a route segment where one of the ends is not on a recognised waypoint. It's been fixed ready for this week's release.

There are a few technical reasons why printing the chart displays isn't currently available as well as my fear that someone might try and use it as a "chart" in the cockpit. I can imagine the enroute features window becoming printable before the main map is, but neither will happen before version 1 release.

The map should remember the last thing you were looking at, it certainly shouldn't take you back to the south-west every time you start it.

When i click on Scunthorpe it comes up with a totallly different name - Foddingham or something like like.

Any reasom why?

Yeah, there was a tiny town in our database at exactly the same location that was being picked up by the waypoint resolver. Fixed, thanks.

I've been following this & trying the home based prog. from the start on this forum. It's great !
Could you kindly alter the strip height for Jackrell's Farm to 230 ft. pls, next time you have the opportunity.

Thanks,

mikehallam.

I can't personally, but the data for non-AIP airfields comes from FlightNav.co.uk. If you spot an error in that data, that's the place to go to get it corrected.

SkyAngel 0.9.9 Released!
 

Hi Guys,

It's that time of the week again. This build adds a great deal of polish as we work towards the full version 1 release. Here's a breakdown of what's changed and new:

InFlight
---
Cut down data loading time by roughly two thirds, compared with previous release
Added "inspect" context menu item for examining all the information about any item on the main map
Approaching Features instrument enhanced with inspection capabilities, better warnings and more features drawn
When you exit the software, if the GPS was active it is automatically started next time
Follow mode (north/heading up) is now in Options, simplifying the menu item under the Chart menu to a simple check box
The map position and zoom level is now remembered
Warning thresholds are now adjustable, like they are in Plan, via the Options window
Route and track log folders have been changed to reside within the SkyAngel directory, because many devices were discarding the contents of the My Documents folder

Plan
---
Enroute Features view improved with better drawing and more helpful weather tooltips
PLOG format improved with more usage of colours to denote differences between waypoint types, radio aid types etc
The TAS for a route now comes from the aircraft default speed unless a route TAS is explicitly specified
User Waypoints window added for centralised management of user waypoints
User Waypoints are now exported to InFlight along with a route
Planned fuel is now saved along with a route
The last-used aircraft is now selected when the application is next started
Fixed a bug introduced two builds ago that would prevent SkyAngel from working on 64-bit Windows

Enjoy.

Thanks for the link. Tim,

I've got in touch & now sent them correct data which they've incorporated on their site for Jackrell's Farm.

mikehallam

Hi Tim
I just loaded the new version of Plan and found that I had lost all my user waypoints. No problem to load them again but I thought I would try to load them from a saved route. Now here's a strange thing - if I highlight a waypoint in the old route, then right click to create a user waypoint it ends up a long way from where the old waypoint in the route was. Tried it with a few and they all seem to be 1 or 2 miles from where I expected.

Tone

The user waypoint should end up in the exact position of the mouse cursor when you right-click; is this not happening?

We changed the user waypoint storage medium in this version. They're all stored in your My Documents folder under SkyAngel now, in a simple XML file so it's easy to share/edit/transfer/backup all of them without worrying that a future version might not find them (as has occurred here). Previously they were stored alongside the software's general settings.

How does one get into an xml file to edit it or copy some/all of its contents?

Chris N.

At the very least, any text editor; but if you manage to screw up the formatting of the contents, there is no guarantee the original application will load it again afterwards.

There are graduated levels of self-description and validation of XML, and editors which take this into account and ensure your changes are validated, but in the first instance try notepad....or vi.....:E

Thanks. So "Notepad" should do it.

Obviously, if amending or adding, format of carriage returns, commas and spaces etc. have to be maintained.

Chris N.

Yes notepad will do it just fine. XML isn't that strict; as long as the elements are there (between the angle brackets) it will read the data just fine. Don't worry too much about carriage returns or other whitespace. You'll see that there's just one waypoint per line.

Having said that, it shouldn't be necessary to edit the file manually when you can use SkyAngel to do it. But, if you wanted to import a load of waypoints from a friend, pasting them in to the file would work just fine.

Superb addition Tim, many thanks.

Hi Tim
I have tried this again by setting up a new route to include Bottesford VRP and Hucknall. With this route loaded I right clicked on the Bottesford and Hucknall boxes and created user waypoints. Both turned out to be some distance from where I expected them to be.
From the route data;
<Hint Location="N525753.00 W0004654.00" Name="Bottesford" />
<Hint Location="N530052.00 W0011306.00" Name="Hucknall" />
and from the user waypoints;
Bot N525804.00 W0004644.00
Huc N530027.00 W0011048.00

The cursor was in the middle of the descrition box when I right clicked. This oddity only occurs if you try to create user waypoints from an existing route and the only reason I was trying to do this was because I thought I had lost all my user waypoints.
Perhaps not serious but you should be aware of it.
Tone

Tone, I'm pretty sure this is happening because you're expecting the new waypoint to be created in exactly the same position as the centre of the turningpoint box. This isn't the case; it'll be created in the position of the mouse cursor which is likely off by a few pixels, which will translate to a few seconds of accuracy.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention though. In the future it might be possible to detect the case where you're clicking on an existing turningpoint and enforce the exact position of the turningpoint, rather than getting the current mouse cursor position.

Tim
Thanks for the quick reply. The thing that brought this to my attention was the fact that the user waypoints I created were well ouside the turning point box, up to a mile or more. If it were only a few pixels different I would't have noticed.
Tone

Well now that I cannot explain. :ugh:

I love being able to insert custom NOTAMs for my home FIR.

However, there's a bug in the implementation. It will only work when copying the NOTAM list in IE. When using Google Chrome, you get all the NOTAMs parsed as one giant NOTAM.

The culprit is the end-of-line detection. IE copies the NOTAMs as

while Google Chrome enters the same NOTAMs on the clipboard as

Cut and paste into Word to replace each carriage return with a double carriage returns solves the problem, so apparently SkyAngel expects double CRs for some reason.

Yet another item on the to do list, but a rather small one I'd say. :)

If you want more of a challenge, make it possible to present the full text of each notam when double clicking them. As it is, there are plenty of notams which are not easily deciphered when truncated to only the text portion and the position.

Cheers!
/Fred

NOTAMs should always end with a double newline. Chrome not copying text to the clipboard properly isn't something I intend to work around in SkyAngel.

Where's that requirement found? Not saying I doubt it exists, I just can't locate it from a quick browse through Annex 15/Doc 8400 and I'm curious by nature. :)

Regarding the copying algorithms, you'll have to blame Naviair (which you link in SkyAngel) and not Google Chrome. It's the Naviair site which (re)publishes the NOTAMs without any newlines at all, as the NOTAM page is an HTML table rather than raw text. This gives browsers a lot of freedom to implement the copying any old way they please, regardless of what ICAO says.

As a user, I kindly request this feature in order to be able to use my standard browser in conjunction with your software. ICAO compliant or not, the current implementation hampers the usability of the software.

Ideally, we'd have access to the raw NOTAM feeds for every FIR in the world but looking at it realistically, you'll have users copying NOTAM text from pretty much any source they can get their hands on. Strict enforcement of the data format will mean lots of frustrated users around the world. This far, it's just luck that IE copies tables in a (non-ICAO-compliant) format which the parser can handle.

Cheers,
/Fred