Just a bump of the topic. Has it made it yet to a likely spot on your to-do list, Tim?

Thanks, -- Chris.

No, I'm afraid not. The frequency of people asking for this is so low that it didn't even come up at our most recent development meeting.

That is a pitty.
The reason why there is not so much request for it that a lot of people have already asked for this option and are just waiting for it.
After doing a 8 day tour around eastern europe we really needed that option.
But I still think that SD is the best planning/ moving map software there is on the market for VFR flying.

with kind regards

I don't think that is the reason. We're very familiar with the process of constant demand, and that's how we decide what features get developed. When there is a true demand, it is constant. People tell us by email, by phone, on these forums and others, every week. That is simply not happening for multi-sector routes.

Hi Tim, now I am a bit confused. You just wrote:

No, I'm afraid not. The frequency of people asking for this is so low that it didn't even come up at our most recent development meeting.

But a little farther back you posted this:

It's something we're still considering. It's probably one of the features we don't have which is requested most often, but the points against it are also strong, in that it would require significant development investment and would complicate the product.                               

It's something we're still considering. It's probably one of the features we don't have which is requested most often, but the points against it are also strong, in that it would require significant development investment and would complicate the product.                               

I believe this would really make planning long trips a lot easier and more comfortable from a user point of view. It would not burden the user interface and could be integrated seamlessly with what's already in place. Plus, there have been numerous people on this forum asking for it. I can't, of course, speak to the absolute numbers but judging by the forum response this would not be wasted development time.

Please, keep this in mind and don't simply strike it off the new feature list.

Thanks, -- Chris.

It certainly hasn't been struck off anywhere. I just mentioned that because my colleagues, who collate this stuff and raise each proposed new feature at our meetings, haven't raised this recently.

Having given this a bit more thought, I'm prepared to slowly start making our way towards this feature. Don't expect it right away, but we can go some of the way in the forthcoming version and then together decide how far to take it in the next version, etc.

What I am proposing is that in the forthcoming version we enable multiple sectors per flightplan file. This would take the form of a "Land Here" button as Chris suggested, which would split a sector into two sectors. The user interface would subtly change once there is more than one sector defined, with each turning point that is a landing highlighted in different colours. There would then be a "selected sector" (highlighted) and ALL SkyDemon features such as Virtual Radar, NOTAM briefing, PLOG etc would refer to the selected journey only.

If that sounds like an acceptable first step, I will post a beta version of SkyDemon Plan only (for PC) with this feature turned on for testing. If and when people are happy with it, we can discuss how the feature can be extended in the next version, such as making the PLOG reflect all sectors or making the fuel flow from one sector to the next. As it stands (with my proposal above) each sector will have its own Planned Fuel setting just as the single sector does in the current version.

Feedback?

That's great news, Tim! I really think you are using this forum to good advantage in developing SD further. The only other company I know which does so is Dynon.

Your proposal sounds good. The way I understand it is that in the planning stage you can define points-of-landing (POLs) which break a long route into individual sectors. What SD displays in terms of ETA (final), DST (final), NOTAMs, etc. and the portion shown in the vertical crosssection view pertains only the the currently active segment. POLs are visually distinct from other waypoints. SD essentially treats a multi-sector route as a sequence of individual single-sector routes. Everything we have known to apply to routes will henceforth apply to each sector of a route individually, right?

For sectors to be useful during planning, it would be necessary that each waypoing can easily made into a POL and back again to an ordinary waypoint. The way I would be using this feature during planning is this: on a long trip, say across the US, I would plan the entire route as one sector. Then, depending on fuel and facilities I would break it down into individual sectors by choosing POLs. Therefore it should be easy to see the effect on fuel status when choosing this or that POL. I would optimize the route and come up with a properly "sectorized" version of it. Then, during the flight, there might be circumstances which require a deviation from the plan, i.e., I am actually landing one waypoint further along because of favorable winds. Upon landing, it should then be easy to adapt the planning to the new situation. This would mean to un-POL the previously planned stop and put a POL at where I actually landed. I would then specify fuel on board for this new POL and expect to see updated fuel available figures along the route. Based on these, I would then move my POLs to a new optimum.

I hope I made this clear from a user's point of view so that a software developer can see the underlying reason behind it and maybe even improve on it.

Excited to see this new feature, -- Chris.

Hi Tim,
What you propose is more or less what I do now using an Excel sheet, defining landing and fuel flow... So for me it is a very good option.

Chris, your first main paragraph is correct by my understanding.
I've implemented this with a simple "Land Here" command on the context menu for a turning point which inserts a POL as you call them, but behind the scenes it splits your sector into two distinct sectors.
There is a corresponding "Do Not Land Here" command to join up the two sectors into one again.
Fuel flow is going to be the big thing to get right going forward, but I must reiterate that for the forthcoming 3.0.8 I can't do that; it will literally just be the splitting and joining parts so that multiple seconds are represented in one flightplan. After 3.0.8 goes live, assuming there are no major issues with what I've already done, we'll get cracking on intelligently flowing the fuel from one sector's model through to the next etc and being able to specify that you'll be "topping up" at a POL.