Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By James Chan
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1801926
Congratulations to Tim and the rest of the team for innovating and creating an intuitive piece of software that provides a great wealth of pre-flight and in-flight information for so many countries, yet remains affordable to so many.

A very well deserved award. :thumleft:

I have to admit when I first looked at SkyDemon many many years ago, I hated the way it could not display Class A airspace properly in the UK, so left it on the shelf and used other GPS moving map devices instead.

Years later new functionalities came such as easy flight plan filing, en-route and destination weather display, better display of NOTAMs, GAR integration, overlaid Visual Approach and Aerodrome Charts, and fixing many of the pressing airspace display issues.

Since then and when I bought my iPad, I switched and have loved using it. My favourite bit was the quick PLOG and radio frequency generation which confined my whizz wheel to the bottom of the flight bag. They have also been very engaged seeking feedback from users to develop their product further. :-)
johnm, Nick, Rob P liked this
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1801999
James Chan wrote:I have to admit when I first looked at SkyDemon many many years ago, I hated the way it could not display Class A airspace properly in the UK


Are you sure you're not mixing up Sky Demon and Garmin? It was Garmin which didn't display the airspace properly.
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By James Chan
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1802010
100% sure. Back in the day if your preferred cruising altitude was say 7,000ft-10,000ft then a lot of airspace particularly from Manchester and south was fairly unreadable. If you hovered your mouse over a segment you'd see several layers of overlapping airways. But it worked if your altitude was around 3,000ft or below (not much class A there).

Anyway, it all works very well today now apart from some bits around Manchester and north of that.
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By akg1486
#1802033
Congratulations, Tim. Here's another happy customer being constantly awed by the new features that just keep coming. You, Sir, have revolutionized general aviation.
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By Cub
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1802048
James Chan wrote:100% sure. Back in the day if your preferred cruising altitude was say 7,000ft-10,000ft then a lot of airspace particularly from Manchester and south was fairly unreadable. If you hovered your mouse over a segment you'd see several layers of overlapping airways. But it worked if your altitude was around 3,000ft or below (not much class A there).

Anyway, it all works very well today now apart from some bits around Manchester and north of that.


I think you are identifying a failing in the way that our airspace was defined by airways polygons until a few years ago and not any failing in depiction in SkyDemon. Tim’s lobbying certainly played a part in the consolidation of multiple airways into defined CTAs which made the electronic interpretation far more usable. Was never a SkyDemon failing AIR.
Ian Melville, Rob P, Dave W and 1 others liked this
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By davef77
#1802135
Rob L wrote:Well done Tim :thumright:


I suppose poor old St Garmin never got a mention 25 years ago :( My 90 saved my navigation life many a time.

Edit: anyone remember the Garmin toblerone?

I have still got mine


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1802220
cotterpot wrote:I still have - in a drawer somewhere - my Garmin 92 and 96c. The colour screen of the 96c was a pixel or two bigger than the 92 but really wasn't worth the extra.


Hope you took the batteries out!

When I dug my GPS 90 and my Toblerone Pilot 3 out after 10 years in the back of the cupboard they were totally mankyfied by leaking Duracells

edit sp.
Last edited by PeteSpencer on Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By Propwash
#1802272
My first taste of GPS flying was a Trimble Flightmate Pro linked to a Skyforce Locator. I thought it was black magic at the time. I certainly didn't envisage how the technology would develop. I still have both because I can't bear to part with them. I may even put some batteries in to see if they still work!

PW
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By Pete L
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1802301
The Garmin 296 I have in the panel (with Cub's database of useful UK aviation locations) still hasn't been bettered for how to make something usable in flight with so few buttons. It's a credit to SD that the Garmin is now the backup device.
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By Rob L
#1802424
Pete L wrote:The Garmin 296 I have in the panel (with Cub's database of useful UK aviation locations) still hasn't been bettered for how to make something usable in flight with so few buttons. It's a credit to SD that the Garmin is now the backup device.


I have one too!

I also have a GPS Map 496 (the colour one) for sale as part of an Estate sale; all proceeds to MNDA (Motor Neurone Disease Association); £100 or hopefully better offer, plus P&P, needs new or refurbished batteries and software update, but has bean bag, case, cables, speaker (?) manual and so on.

Rob