Hi,
I am facing the same problem right now as the opener of this thead. Next month I will be flying to France for the first time. At the early time of planning I was not aware of the standard airspace structure in France. I just found by chance that several airspaces (even at lower areas, like E in Germany) are not displayed at all.

In my eyes, this is highly dangerous! Of course you say your software shouldnt be used as primary source, but lets be honest, why should I give you 100+ € per year if I need to use the map in flight anyway.

Attached you will find an simple planning from Munich to Innsburch at 14000 ft. Munich has a class C around it. But above FL100 theres just nothing! Somebody coming the opposite way from Austria in FL120 will think he's allowed to overfly Munich, because theres nothing above FL100.

You're able to put in a huge "Alpine Class C" in southern Germany, you're able to put in huge TMAs in Austria, you're able to put in thousands of smaller airpsaces all over Europe. I simply cannot imagine that theres a problem implementing the standard airspace structure of every country you cover.

I also must disagree with flip: If huge airspaces are slowing down your software, then it's your duty to work on your basic software!!! People are paying for this!

And, by the way: Wouldn't it be an idea to have the standard airspace structure of every country listed in the software somewhere? Something like the 10 basic rules of flying in France/Germany/Austria/UK/...

Right now I have a monthly subscription for testing, yesterday I was flying over the alps in 12000ft in my TMG. Knowing that some airspaces are missing makes me feeling really unsafe! Probably I won't be buying the full subscription until this issue is solved.

Best Regards,
Johannes König

tl;dr: Implement it! Software performace problems are your problems, not your paying customers ones. So you need to fix it!

As a new SD customer I absolutely agree. My reason to buy SD was that I needed a system when I cancel IFR and continue VFR and have f u l l situational awareness. If the VFR system lacks critical airspace information then it is useless.

Another question with respect to Restriction areas: Is this information also lacking for areas above FL100?? Tim Dawson please respond to this. In the past I have used skymap with the official ICAO chart - on this ICAO chart the full vertical dimension of the restriction areas is displayed. So skymap seems here - at least with respect to restriction areas - much better.

We include all airspace whose lower level is below FL195, with the current exception of "blanket" controlled airspace at higher altitudes covering entire countries, which (as I believe may have been mentioned earlier) we assume pilots flying at those altitudes are already aware of.

To my knowledge we are missing no airspace at lower levels in the entirety of Europe.

I can only re-iterate that FL100 or 10,000 feet MSL is not outrageously high when flying in Alpine regions. I certainly would expect SD to alert me to class C airspace infringements at that altitude. Whether I am familiar with German airspace structure or not is secondary. I bought SD because I want to rely on one piece of software for my cartographic needs and worries. This is no small matter to me, either.

In Hungary, for example, there is a blanket class C airspace above 9500 feet. It doesn't show in SD. What other airspaces are omitted in other countries? This really weakens my trust in SD as a VFR navigation platform.

You don't have to show that kind of blanket airspace on the map. But I would certainly expect to be warned when doing a "What's here?" on any point and I want to be warned before entering such airspace. And it also ought to show up in the certical cross section view. You could also show it as a warning under "Flight Details" such as you do with other issues.

-- Chris.

It is a great approach of focussing on the customer if you say to the customer that he should be aware of the incompleteness of your data instead of just providing a complete set of data customers could trust on. FL195 seems like a reasonable boundary to cut the data, but this implies that the data below FL195 is complete, which it obviously isn't.



Guys, seriously, this is not acceptable! Just think of the following: Given the hypothetical case that the standard airspace structure is comletely provided in SD. How high is the chance that theres a customer complainig that he doesn't need the standard structure because "he knows it anyway"? How high is the chance that you guys would post a press release saying: "We remove the standard airspaces because the people were annoyed of it".

This whole discussion is ridicolous. Your data is faulty and you deny to change it. It would be nice to see at least an approach to solving this problem. What about discribing the standard airspace structure somewhere in the app?

Chris, we do actually have that airspace. I guess you missed it.

Jo, we will take your feedback on board. However, if you do not like our current policy on the inclusion of blanket airspace on our charts, I suggest you use a different product. Most ICAO charts do not include it on the chart either; they instead include some notes or a diagram in the margin. Obviously, SkyDemon does not have a margin.

Regarding the comment about EDMU. You state that SkyDemon "basically says airspace G goes from GND to UNL". It says no such thing, you just assumed that because there isn't a label saying otherwise. I took a look at an ICAO chart for that area and there is no label saying otherwise at that point either. I hope you see the point, which is that blanket country-wide airspace is not usually described on a map. I do like the notion of having a little diagram or description elsewhere in the product but that is a potential future development.

Hey Tim,
sorry for being a little bit harsh in the first place. I was really confused when I was flying back from austria some days ago and the software didnt show me the beginning of Class C in FL100 near Munich. And the explanation given by you in this discussion earlier (performance issues) doesnt really satisfy. In my eyes, thats a rather lame excuse.

You're right, comparing Skydemon with the ICAO chart, theres no difference. However, the traditional chart does not have the side view at the bottom. And your side view is definitely wrong without standard airspaces. Also, I think that the map doesn't show it because it cannot be drawn on a top-down-view. But a software allows us to do this, so why not improve it?

My suggestion is as follows:
1. For the top-down-view, do not show the standard airspaces. Basically, handle them the same way you handle country-wide NOTAMs. Hide them.
2. Hoever, in the side view, these airspaces should absolutely be visible! The picture I've attached to the earlier post is so horribly misleading.
3. Also, people must(!) be warned when approaching a standard A/B/C/D/E, like in the example with the FL130/FL100 Germany Class C. Almost every border has an altitude where there is an E/G on the one side and an A/B/C/D on the other.

If this really brings up performance issues (I really cannot image why this should not be solvable), please add a switch to the software, something like: Show/Warn about standard airspaces.

Maybe it is an idea to show these airspaces only in planning mode? Performance shouldnt be an issue there.

My problem is not Germany, I'm from southern Germany so I know how the game works between Munich and Innsbruck. But I don't know the details of Poland, Czech, UK, and so on. And when tapping into any area, I want to know what the vertical classes are. At least up to FL195.

Tim, when I do a "long tap" on a point in the region of, say, LHFM I see no mention of the blanket Budapest class C CTA that starts at 9500 MSL in the "what's here?" window. What am I missing?

-- Chris.

You're missing the fact that we do not show that blanket airspace on the map. It's in virtual radar, it's in the flight details window if you plan a route through it, and it will show an in-flight warning if you approach it.

Jo, you state the performance issues resulting from the inclusion of large country-wide pieces of airspace in our calculations are our problem. You are correct, you just don't like how we have currently handled the problem, which is to omit the largest (most problematic) pieces of airspace from our data deliberately to keep a good general experience for the vast majority of our customers. I agree with you that our software would be better if these pieces were included, and I have planned some time in the future to see if there's any way we can mitigate the performance issues.

Do not underestimate the difference it can make including two 1,000 vertex polygons (that's the class C and class E) for Germany in our airspace hit-testing, which runs every time you change your route and every few seconds in flight. Anyone flying in the vicinity of Germany would be subject to this, which is many thousands of customers.

Tim, that's almost the solution I suggested in a previous post. If you now could just add the airspace to the list shown when you do a "what's here" I'd be a happy camper.

Greetings, -- Chris.