[marioair]

With permission, PPL/IR Europe has asked me to repost this, which is of general interest to IR pilots regarding Jeppesen’s decision to withdraw JeppMFD.
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Tim Dawson and PPL/IR held a couple of meetings with Jepp/Boeing about the potential of integrating Jepp charts into SD [SkyDemon].

Boeings position is that, in the US, they’ve seen an acceptable enough conversion from JeppMFD users to ForeFlight, for them to not be interested in further discussions at this stage. However they’re waiting to see what happens over the next 12 months in Europe and accept the FF market in Europe is different.

They wanted to open the door to customers to give them direct feedback on demand for Jepp Chart integration with products such as SD.

If this would interest you then please email Jepp ;

CAPTAIN@jeppesen.com
Subject: For Attention of Product Marketing & Development
Body:

Please can you forward this email onto
Product Marketing & Development
Boeing Global Services
.............your email

[Iceman]

I’m still trying to get my ForeFlight integrated with my Jepp subscription and have an open ticket with ForeFlight at the moment. Now that Jepp and ForeFlight are both owned by Boeing, I can understand their reticence to open it up to competitor products, particularly as ForeFlight tries to get more of a foothold in Europe. If SkyDemon was to offer this integration as well, then all well and good.

Iceman

[Ibra]

Thanks Paul, I sent an email

It would be ideal to get Jepps with GeoRef integrated with SkyDemon (especially for France where SIA/DGAC publish their AIP plates in one single document), the only option SkyDemon IFR flyers have now is printed Jepps paper !

[Dodo]

We've just had an Avidyne IFD440 fitted in the Archer shareoplane which can act as a GPS source for Skydemon.

So if Skydemon has an approved IFR GPS source, can it be legally used as an approved navigation device on an IFR flight?

I would imagine not, but that is a pity,

[Ibra]

It's more than just "certified position" there is also the approved "navigator guidance", there are load of details on: primary navigation & secondary navigation, pannel equipment, pilot interpreted sources and raw data, TSO129/146, AFMS, PBN approved, FM immune, pannel annunciations

On using SkyDemon for IFR, here is my guess:

1/ You are entitled to fly IFR on heading HDG bug using your DG or HSI, do we agree on this?

2/ The HDG bug can come from your printed PLOG during planning, visual navigation, Dead Recon calculations using VOR/DME/GPS, ATC radar guidance RNAV1/2, PAR/SRA and wait for it.....SkyDemon PLOG

In the other hand, you can't feed SkyDemon position & guidance to your CDI/HSI that would be illegal, that has to come from certified TSO source like VLOC/GPS in your IFD440, there is a detailed description of equipement specs including how many centimetres they can sit away from pilot eyes in the cockpit and what type of annunciations is expected, some aircraft even prohibit the use of IFR GPS by PIC from RHS in POH or AFM Supplement due to these, I gather a SkyDemon tablet strapped to my leg or my wife leg would fail such criteria

I am sure what I said above would not fly very high with those who fly VOR-VOR airways, controlled directs or vectors, or above FL100 in PBN airspace with waypoints, however, anyone who fly off-airways IFR (outside published routes and radar guidance) would have to s**k it up and also fly on SkyDemon for navigation using headings, you still need pannel equipment to stay legal but I personally can't get good guidance from GTN/VOR to fly in clouds while remaining outside controlled airspace, I need my extra tablet to cross-check, especially when bimbling in corridors that are defined by VRPs or when going to ZZZZ in IMC as OBS/DCT is not enough you gotta use the heading bug againt tablet heading at someone point no?

PS: navigation while IFR in visual conditions following VRP-VRP counts as RNAV5, pilots are trained to be as good as VOR-VOR

[Spamcan Defender]

That would be a massive step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. The next stumbling block would be the way Jepp prices their offerings............

SD

[2Donkeys]

Jepp on SkyDemon would be a great result, but the pricing of Jepp charting is sufficiently punchy, that they are not often the choice of casual IMC-rated pilots.

Which means that to really move the game forward, SkyDemon would need to build in a few extra features to appeal to the Instrument Rated market. Such basics as Eurocontrol routing and the ability to file an IFR flight plan would be a great start.

With features like that built in, and Jepp integration, people like me might well be tempted to bin our Foreflight subscriptions.

[Uptimist]

Jepp on SkyDemon would be a great result, but the pricing of Jepp charting is sufficiently punchy, that they are not often the choice of casual IMC-rated pilots.

Which means that to really move the game forward, SkyDemon would need to build in a few extra features to appeal to the Instrument Rated market. Such basics as Eurocontrol routing and the ability to file an IFR flight plan would be a great start.

With features like that built in, and Jepp integration, people like me might well be tempted to bin our Foreflight subscriptions.

And that sentiment won’t make them keen to integrate if they believe it to be widespread!

The incentive would be if they think pilots who don’t currently subscribe to Jepp plates (like me) might do so if integrated with SD.

[BoeingBoy]

Well I, for one, would sign up to having Jepp charts within SD. However maybe the best solution is to research other sources, one of which is the Lufthansa alternative, LIDO.

I used these just before retirement from TUI and whilst I found the charts better (and more colourful) than Jepps, their only downside was that they used more acronyms than the rest of the aviation industry put together. Once you got your head around them though, they were very good.

https://www.lhsystems.com/solutions/flight-operations-solutions/lido-pilot-solutions

Just an idea.

[A4 Pacific]

I agree.

Having used both LIDO and Jepps professionally, I prefer LIDO. Though that may be down to greater familiarity with LIDO.

[Iceman]

Did Aerad charts disappear altogether?

Iceman

[Ibra]

Jepp on SkyDemon would be a great result, but the pricing of Jepp charting is sufficiently punchy, that they are not often the choice of casual IMC-rated pilots.

Jepps is more useful when a UK pilot fly IFR outside UK, just like they use SkyDemon to fly VFR outside UK

In UK, using SkyDemon GeoRef AiP plates should be enough for the typical IMCr rated pilot, he would not fly on Dutch or Spanish IFR plates, Jepps or AiP, the latter are tough to read in IMC and unfamiliar airports, I found myself reading the missed instructions in French once

[2Donkeys]

My point wasn't really about the merits or costs of Jepp charts versus any other options (of which there are a few).

What I was attempting to suggest was that SkyDemon (to date) has far bigger gaps in its IFR capability than the ability to show non-AIP charts. A serious IFR pilot (the sort that would spend a bundle on Jeppesen Europe-wide IFR coverage) is not going to pay for that on a platform where Eurocontrol routings are not available, and where you can't actually even file an IFR flight plan.

Presumably, SkyDemon are working on this too, if they are going to the trouble of investigating Jepp integration.

[NDB_hold]

Couldn’t see a sample chart there but would they be more like old style AERAD (rather than new rather bland NAVTECH)?

[marioair]

I’m a member of PPL/IR and have seen the discussion evolve. It’s not being led by SD or Boeing but by pilots.

They’ve also spoken to NavBlue but they’re not interested as they want to deal with Commercial customers.

At the GA side we are left with
1) Jepp
2) National AIPs
3) Navigraph + AIPs

SD is not looking at going all in on IFR
On a albeit not scientific poll of PPL/IR a large majority use SD (+Autorouter) rather than FF.
This is mainly because of the poor VFR capabilities of FF rather than the multi app (SD + AR) foibles of the former