I agree that on the face of it, such a feature seems simple. It isn't.

It would be a huge mistake for us to try and be all things to all people, which is why we have so far resisted adding this complication to SkyDemon. The number of people asking for it weighed against the development effort it would entail and negative effect it would have on the UI for people who aren't interested in it have so far resulted in is making the decision not to do it. That may change in the future.

I think what's being asked for is already a function of other nav software such as FlightStar by Jepp. I stopped using FlightStar because SkyDemon is so much better, but the addition of this function will really make SD best in class.

Hugh

Regards



Hugh

G-OIBM

Commander 114

Tim, what I envision is a somewhat less restrictive paradigm of what constitutes a waypoint. As a user I would want to be able to specify three additional items of information for each intermediary waypoint:

1) Whether the waypoint is used for a "stop over".

2) If so, how long the stop over delay is going to be, and

3) what the amount of fuel is when leaving this waypoint.

I don't think that this would require much in the way of changes to the user interface. Currently (on the iPad), when I "long press" on an intermediary waypoint a window opens giving me the options (among others) to either remove the waypoint or get more information about it. Choosing the latter, I am presented with the following possibilities under the Route heading: "Start New Route", "Append To Route" or "Insert Between Waypoints". A new option titled "Stop Over Here" could then take me to a window where I could enter the stop over delay and new fuel load.

On the vertical view this stop over point would automatically lead to a "crossing" altitude equal to the field elevation. The stop over delay would be included in all ETA calculations and, of course, also show up on the PLOG. And the fuel/range/endurance calculations would need to take the new fuel situation into account. I could also see a stop over point being a different color in the map view. And for the fuel calculation I would add the standard values for Taxi/Takeoff, Landing and Holding Time fuel requirements.

What do you think?

-- Chris.

C'mon Tim,

I raised this as suggestion about a year ago and lots of posts were received supporting this feature.

Its come up again - so any chance of popping this facility into SD?

Hugh

Regards



Hugh

G-OIBM

Commander 114

Aha, but that is definitely a feature above and beyond simply being able to have multiple sectors in one trip. Now you want fuel usage (and therefore weight and balance) to automatically flow through to subsequent sectors, which will entail a necessarily tricky user interface to manage and set up. All this user interface would need to simply not exist for that majority of customers who have no desire for such multi-sector planning.

SkyDemon has technically been able to support multiple sectors per trip for years, it just doesn't allow you to create them. You can alter the raw XML of a file to put several sectors into it and then load it, but nothing fancy will happen with regards to fuel and weight and balance.

Yes, frankly, I have to agree. Although not a major issue it is a small, little feature I miss. The scenario is thus: I plan a long trip and break it up into individual routes which I enter and save in SD. Then, for various reasons, I land earlier or later and fuel up at this different landing point. Now all my other routes are off because of this. It's a bit of a hassle to fix the other routes to take that alteration into account.

No biggie but certainly would be appreciated.

-- Chris.

Thank you all for your responses. I take it this software is not being used much in the United States. I like the available features, but there are a lot of features that would make it "brilliant" as the English would say. Fuel stops is one of those.

For the time being, you simply need to plan your trip as two routes.

Your searching was OK, there is no possibility to add a fuel stop.
I hope that Tim will consider this possibility.
We are planning a trip from the Netherlands to Croatia and we will need a lot of fuel stops.
In those cases it would be very handy to plan the complete trip with fuel stops.

with kind regards
Bouwair