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:eek:
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.:cool:

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

Uh-oh. :)

Cheers!
/Fred

All right, all right. Done.

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?

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

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

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.

Have I missed something?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 :)

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.

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.

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

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

Thanks, Tim. Chris N.

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

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 :)

SkyDemon 0.9.13 Released!
 

This is (likely) the last beta release of SkyDemon. We've added a couple of superficial configuration features, finalised artwork/naming and improved Town data but apart from that everything is pretty much identical to the last released version.

Oh, and data for Denmark will be available by the end of today.

Plan
---
It is now possible to specify the port to use when communicating with Garmin/Magellan external devices
It is now possible to specify the search path to use when communicating with SkyDemon InFlight devices

InFlight
---
The altimeter is now highlighted in red when uncalibrated from ellipsoid altitude

Hi Tim, You're a genius!!! this is the most user friendly planning software I've come across. I have been telling everybody I know about it and told them to purchase ASAP. (Commission?)

I was thinking, would it be an idea to speak to one of the GPS suppliers and sell the software already loaded into their Sat Nav? I know you would be selling the licence for them to use your program but they may take it to a bigger market and give you a bigger return.

Alan.

Great Software
 

Hi,

I've been observing this thread for a while now and have just had a go at using the software, which is absolutely fantastic. I'm not a PPL yet, just a student, so I don't have much to comment on with the practical use of the package, however I understand the concept and I am astounded.

There is one thing I'm struggling with, though. My internet connection is via a proxy server and when I plot a route the weather information and NOTAM automatic download fails, giving me a message regarding proxy authentication. I've had a trawl around and don't seem to be able to find an option to input my proxy settings and credentials.

I also have a F&H PND (eBuyer), which is basically a Navigo but with a 4.3" screen. I have managed to run Memory-map (Tried in the car, ready for when I qualify!) and Igo 8 on it with no real problems, however I'd like to try SkyDemon Inflight as well for the more versatile track information among other obvious things. The PND is a Windows CE 5.0 device, and I have downloaded the Inflight BETA, however it states on the website that the .NET compact framework is required. I have downloaded this also, however it only seems to come as an installer package which won't run on my PND. I don't want to start messing with it as I may damage it, and the internal memory of the PND is reset to factory settings when I perform a hard reset meaning even if it did install, it would be gone again after a switch off. Does this mean I can't run Inflight on it? Or are there some DLLs etc. that I could place in the InFlight directory? I haven't actually tried any of this, by the way, I'm just posing the questions before I break my PND. From what I can gather, ideally I would need a zipped version of the framework to place on the SD card, then somehow instruct InFlight to refer to the directory I've placed the framework in. I had to do something similar to get Memory-map to remember it is a genuine copy. (I had to change the registry to look for Application Data on the SD card, not on the internal memory. This enabled me to register the software on the PND and the device to be hard reset without the licence for MM being lost as the registry isn't reset after a hard off.)

Again, thanks for letting everyone try the Beta, and be sure to let us know when the final's released as I, as I'm sure others are, am very eager to own the final version.

Thanks Alan, very much appreciated. We've been talking with some people about getting SkyDemon hardware devices produced. There's nothing to announce yet but it would seem unlikely for SkyDemon to be successful in general and for there not to be a dedicated hardware device created at some point.

mr_rodge, unfortunately there isn't scope now to introduce proxy settings for that aspect of SkyDemon before release. This is almost certainly something that'll happen after v1 release though. As for your hardware question, installation of .net should be as easy as connecting the device via ActiveSync and running the .net installer on your desktop machine. It should offer to install it on the device during installation. As for whether it'll be wiped when the device is reset, I have no idea. There's a forum specifically for that type of question on the SkyDemon site.

Unhandled exception error GDI+
 

Hi Tim.

Running the latest version.

When I zoom in, to place a waypoint, if I zoom beyond a certain point I get the following:

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.
************** Exception Text **************
System.Runtime.InteropServices.ExternalException: A generic error occurred in GDI+.
at System.Drawing.Graphics.CheckErrorStatus(Int32 status)
at System.Drawing.Graphics.DrawString(String s, Font font, Brush brush, RectangleF layoutRectangle, StringFormat format)
at Divelements.Aviation.FlightPlanner.Rendering.xc33d26eab04d79 57.x7253d7b8c846d67d(x2c1c98f7e7ef4c48 xd0bb5d9c9ba91857, xd7cb7ac31049ffae x0f7b23d1c393aed9, AirspaceEntity x79168b9c04e9426d)
at Divelements.Aviation.FlightPlanner.Rendering.xc33d26eab04d79 57.x32e22c96910a9b10(x2c1c98f7e7ef4c48 xd0bb5d9c9ba91857, xd7cb7ac31049ffae x0f7b23d1c393aed9, AirspaceEntity xa9a706768ab5b5b1)
at Divelements.Aviation.FlightPlanner.Rendering.xc33d26eab04d79 57.x5984854cf71a7a94(x867d3d2864d7f7d1 xd0bb5d9c9ba91857, xd7cb7ac31049ffae x0f7b23d1c393aed9, Entity xa9a706768ab5b5b1)
at Divelements.Aviation.FlightPlanner.Rendering.x867d3d2864d7f7 d1.DrawTwoDimensionalEntity(xd7cb7ac31049ffae context, Entity entity)
at Divelements.Aviation.FlightPlanner.Rendering.x2c1c98f7e7ef4c 48.xe406325e56f74b46(Graphics x41347a961b838962, Rectangle xe831729bf4ec9571)
at Divelements.Aviation.FlightPlanner.Rendering.x970ba8497cedc7 24.OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.PaintWithErrorHandling(PaintEve ntArgs e, Int16 layer, Boolean disposeEventArgs)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmPaint(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(M essage& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Mes sage& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.4200 (NetFxQFE.050727-4200)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Fra...7/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
SkyDemon
Assembly Version: 0.9.13.26857
Win32 Version:
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Divelemen...n/SkyDemon.exe
----------------------------------------
Divelements.SandGrid
Assembly Version: 2.2.2.1
Win32 Version: 2.2.2.1
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Divelemen...s.SandGrid.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.4016 (NetFxQFE.050727-4000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL...dows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.4016 (NetFxQFE.050727-4000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL...089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.4016 (NetFxQFE.050727-4000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL...em.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
Divelements.Aviation
Assembly Version: 1.0.3621.26856
Win32 Version: 1.0.3621.26856
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Divelemen...s.Aviation.DLL
----------------------------------------
SandDock
Assembly Version: 3.0.6.1
Win32 Version: 3.0.6.1
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Divelemen...n/SandDock.DLL
----------------------------------------
Divelements.Mapping
Assembly Version: 1.0.3621.26856
Win32 Version: 1.0.3621.26856
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Divelemen...ts.Mapping.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.4016 (NetFxQFE.050727-4000)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL...System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------
SandBar
Assembly Version: 1.4.2.1
Win32 Version: 1.4.2.1
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/Divelemen...an/SandBar.DLL
----------------------------------------
************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.
For example:
<configuration>
<system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>
When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.


Then I just get the big red cross in the map screen and have to restart the program.

Hugh

Are you looking at anything in particular when you see this? I've never seen anything like this, and no-one else has reported anything similar.

Tim.

I was plotting a route:

Caernarfon - Hawarden - Shobden - Aberporth - Caernarfon.

I plotted the route ok, but as the last leg crosses D201, I dragged it inland to one of the wind farms for a nav point. As I zoomed in using the mouse wheel to make sure it lined up with what was on my map, then I got the error.

Thanks. Unfortunately having tried the steps you outlined I've been unable to reproduce the error. Perhaps if you have time and you're able to, you could reproduce it and give me any more detail that might help.

Tim.

Ok. I've had a play.

First I uninstalled and reinstalled and the problem was still there. I then realised that I didn't need a route loaded, the fault was still there regardless.

I realised that I had all the european data loaded, to plan for a trip into france, but when I installed the latest version I also installed the USA data, to plan for my holiday.

I deleted the USA data and now it's fine.

Hope this helps.

Hugh.

Thanks, it's great that you were able to reproduce it. I've loaded the USA data (do you remember which states you had loaded?) and tried zooming in. What do I have to be looking at when I zoom in?

Tim.

I only had the USA general data file installed, but I was zooming in over the UK, Anywhere caused the fault.

I have reinstalled the USA general data and the fault reappears wherever you try to zoom.

It happens at the zoom level where the distance scale bar in the bottom left of the screen is on 20 and changes for the third time.

I can reproduce the fault at will by reinstalling the USA general data.

The other data files I have installed are:

BeNeLux
France
Germany
Sweden.

Hugh

Hi Tim,

I am using a Garmin 295 still, and this has a RS232 connection. Will this become available as well as the USB connection for route transfer?

Yakker

Hugh, I've sent you a PM.

Yakker, you can now select a COM port in the Preferences window. Does this not work for you?

Tim.

Check your email.

Hugh

Thanks Tim, I read your guide and realized what to do. It does transfer but the route is called 'empty' in the Garmin.

I also have tried my PDA since the upgrades, and cannot transfer the route. I get 'route has been exported'. but on the PDA there is no route. Routes I have previously transferred still show.

I have no control over what the Garmin device decides to name the route.

When you mention your PDA, are you referring to SkyDemon InFlight? Monday's release fixed a bug concerning the name change whereby Plan could export the route to the wrong place on the device. Should be fine now, though.

£95? Wow. Guess it's back to the charts!

The software is still in beta; version 1 has not yet been released. This forum won't be the appropriate place for any discussion of pricing nor the commercial aspects of it when it is, though; I suspect that would be against the rules.

Yes SkyDemon Inflight is on my PDA, and I did the update yesterday, and still have the route transfer problem. If I copy the route across to the PDA using Active Sync, when I open the route in InFlight, the route is listed, but does not show on the map, whereas previous saved routes load and work okay.

Re the Garmin, the route transfers no problem, just means I need to rename it, no big deal.

How strange. So Plan reports that the route has been successfully exported? Have you searched the device to see if it has ended up somewhere unexpected? Plan basically searches the device for SkyDemon.exe, so if for some reason you had two installations of the software, a route could end up in the wrong one.