Although we always listen to customer feedback, I am not rushing to make this change. Whatever we're doing, we are doing it right, as we're by far the market leader in Europe. I'm not trying to be arrogant, just explaining why we are VERY reluctant to mess with a formula which seems to be working very well for us.

The first line of your post says, rather emphatically, that you mean BEARING to next waypoint, not track. This has confused me. Please could you explain the difference as you see it? True track from your current position to your next planned waypoint is the data which is available to us, and it's that value which is currently shown in the DI at the bottom of the screen. I need to make sure I understand which value it is that you want displayed bigger. We can also take magnetic declination into account to show magnetic track instead of true track.

Have you read the other thread in which some of our users explained why this potential bearing instrument is not necessarily needed? If so, it would be good if you could respond to that; since we are responding to your request. I'd like the debate to be had.

Also, please bear in mind that the data some people seem to want is already onscreen. It's displayed at the bottom, in a logical place alongside your current track over the ground. It appears to the right if you need to turn right, or to the left if you need to turn left.

If the problem is that data isn't large enough, or otherwise prominent enough, then that's something we can help with.

I agree with Timwatson - sorry.

I'm getting into the second half of my life and now need reading specs. Bad enough seeing the Kollsman window on the alt on the panel in front of me or the CHT/EGT gauge without trying to read the ever so small and oft washed out white numbers on a grey background in the small area within the DI thingy at the bottom of the page, or if it's undocked to try and work out what the magenta bug is on.

Please, just give us a numeric in the block at the top - so where it says TRK M why not allow it to be tapped to show the Bearing. TRK M is already replicated in the block in the DI instrument but that is much clearer. Why not just allow the TRK M 'instrument' at the top of screen to be dual-function in the same way that DST, ETA, ALT and 'WIND' are? For some of us, it would make things a bit easier. I think that is all we are asking for.

This request does seem to have stirred up some 'annoyance' at Skydemon and I cannot understand why. Surely if 'some' of us feel we need it, and there is the capacity to provide it, then by providing it would make those 'some' of us feel more warm and cuddly towards Skydemon. Those who don't feel they need it don't have to use it. Certainly had this facility on my Skymap and I fail to see how NOT having a particular function makes the product MORE popular.

The trouble with your request is that we ALREADY provide the information you are requesting. As I said, if you want it bigger or more contrast-y, that is something we can address. But repeatedly asking for an instrument which is already there is what has left us at SkyDemon confused.

I do like your proposal about making the track instrument (which SkyDemon originally didn't have either) toggle-able to say bearing, but many of the people asking for this have specifically said it must be a separate instrument.

This was suggested a while ago as a compromise ;-)
http://forums.skydemon.aero/FindPost14638.aspx

I'm slightly surprised that a manufacturer of navigation equipment would be asking this, but I'll try to explain the difference.

TRACK (TRK) is your current direction of travel. It is the line connecting the aircraft's consecutive positions over the ground. It is not necessarily related to a waypoint. 

BEARING (BRG) is the compass direction from your present position to a waypoint.

And it is BRG that is being requested here. It needs to be displayed larger and more prominently but it does NOT need to be a separate instrument.

I wholly agree with G-AXJI that being able to toggle the TRK T instrument to BRG would do the trick for most of us!

Thank you for clearing up what you meant. As a manufacturer of navigation equipment, all angles between two places on earth are represented internally as tracks. Therefore the angle between your current position and any other position is a track. Bearing is ambiguous because some people mean relative bearing when they say it, and some mean track. Some think track refers only to a planned leg. We try to be clear and consistent everywhere so we can be sure what people are referring to.

You'll be pleased to hear that we've done some work on the existing DI instrument at the bottom of the screen, to make the reading of what you call bearing larger and clearer. We'll see how this is received in the next software update.

I think that may be because (and probably due to the fact I seldom read manuals) many people didn't realise there were 'instruments behind instruments' as in things like wind, ETA, DST etc. To be honest I only realised when I'd poked one and it changed.

You say you already provide the BRG info which as I said is just too small and not in an ideal place. But then you also have the TRK replicated on the instrument cluster (the one we're talking about having BRG as a 2nd function of) and also on the DI, but annoyingly it's much clearer on the DI than BRG is - but I still never look at that, I look at the 'instrument panel' at the top as I can make this nice and big for my failing eyes!!

Perhaps just humour us on this one ... I could understand if we perhaps were asking for the display of Mach number you'd get a tad upset but I'm struggling to understand where the reluctance (polite phrase) for bunging this number which is already generated and provided (albeit in a much less than ideal way for some of us) as a func2 of the TRK instrument, especially as this doesn't currently have a func2 assigned.

Interestingly last weekend I was showing someone who is just about to get his rating back round the Pup and as we sat in AV8 for lunch I was showing him how good SD was - he is a potential SD customer (as well as ANP which he is also looking at). I showed him some of the stored track logs from previous trips, showed him the Google Earth import etc, then showed him a short simulated route. One of the many questions he asked was 'where is the bearing to the waypoint if I go off for a wander and don't want to screw up/remove the route or having to fanny about with typing stuff in to execute a DCT?'! Out of all the questions that I could answer in a positive way, that was one HE also wasn't too happy about.

When you pointed to the instrument at the bottom of the screen and said "there", what did he say?

We've made some changes to the way bearing to next waypoint is displayed ready for the next version so we will come back to this once those changes are in people's hands.

I still don't understand why you cannot simply make BRG the second function of TRK as G-AXJI suggests.