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Tim Dawson
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We always respond to emails. Perhaps those users would like to let you know the date and time of their emails so that I can check.
Switzerland is one of the countries in which we are most popular, so I have trouble reconciling your feedback above with our actual usage. Unless people are using two products at once, which doesn't seem likely on a large scale.
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ckurz7000
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I am from Austria and haven't flown in Switzerland yet. However, I would find it disturbing if a controller asked me to report some small town which isn't an official reporting point published in the AIP. Aeronautics is supposed to be international and I detest local regulations that deviate from the rules in general use. It makes flying internationally for general aviation pilots so much harder!
Tim's points are valid: the ICAO chart is only one of many charts used for flying in Switzerland. I am positive that they don't all show the same small towns. And an interactive, electronic vector chart has the big advantage of being dynamically created.
If a controller asked me to report an unfamiliar town, I would simply reply "Unfamiliar with reporting point." It is upon him to use standard reference points for position reports.
And, finally, you can create your own custom VRPs in SD.
Greetings, -- Chris.
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s1l3ntgl1d3r
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Hi Tim and all
Thank you for keeping this thread alive and taking the time to answer my question. I now have almost 45hrs and got to fly my first solo cross country flight. Here in Switzerland we all train to fly with the Standard ICAO Map, and iPads and moving maps are usually not allowed in basic training, what you do once you have a license is your thing but I always speak to more experienced pilots here and show them the capabilities of SD and they are all really interested. For example the NOTAM system in SD is really cool, even though i am not allowed to use SD in the Air i use SD to "check" my Flightplan and the NOTAM System is just great to visualize active Restricted Zones or Danger Areas. But usually pilots come back to me after trying SD in the Air all with the same feedback, the map is not detailed enough for Swiss Standards, and they all go to Jeppesen, I have tried that product as well but I find SD much better and with a bigger scope of functions. The flight prep is much much better on SD, but the map in Jeppesen kicks some you know what.
I have heard that some Swiss users tried to contact you in this regards, offering help but did not get any feedback. I am pretty sure that adding a few important city names can not be so difficult. I am now adding special waypoints to my map manually but this is not really a solution in my opinion.
Regards
Max
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Tim Dawson
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Group: Forum Members
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If you want the ICAO chart, then I would suggest using it. I hope it is clear why we cannot take somebody else's chart and copy all the villages from it, and apply that to our 500k zoom level. Villages are not aeronautical data and there are many charts out there in use other than the ICAO 500k one.
In nearly every other country, if ATC want you to report somewhere or relative to somewhere, they will use a VRP. That's what VRPs are for.
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Chris_LSZO
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Often in Switzerland a controller say to me: report village xyz. This mean a village shown at the ICAO map. Its not nice to me, if I can't see this village in Skydemon...
Because this, for me its very important to have the same villages in Skydemon like on the ICAO chart.
Chris
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Tim Dawson
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Please feel free to tell us exactly where you were, and how the position offered by SkyDemon was insufficient.
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Vladimir Vician
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+xWe do adapt to the zoom level, but the town selection is an algorithm based upon population of the town; we cannot simply copy what another cartographer has done on an existing product. The problem is not simply one of copyright: if ATC want pilots to report at a specific place, that place should really be an officially published VRP or at least mentioned in the AIP. Having said all that, we do have plans to enable more smaller towns to appear in our maps at high zoom levels, but we are not there yet. Hopefully later this year. Hope this is on the priority list. Because, i need to use another product to be able to report my position !!!. Anyways SD is great product. And I like it. This is last think... More cities names on zoomed map, or be able to custom set density of cities names or higher density along planed route. Hope you plan to incerase density globaly, as I flying in slovakia.
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s1l3ntgl1d3r
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Hi Tim
I am really impressed by how much effort you put in satisfying every customer that is interested in SD. I really like your product, I now use it to plan my flights and as a backup I use an ICAO map. The "issue" I have with the map, is a minor thing but it gets in the way of reccomending your product to all my swiss collegues.
I hope you can find a solution for your maps, as the rest of the appl is really cool.
Regards
Max
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Tim Dawson
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Group: Forum Members
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We do adapt to the zoom level, but the town selection is an algorithm based upon population of the town; we cannot simply copy what another cartographer has done on an existing product. The problem is not simply one of copyright: if ATC want pilots to report at a specific place, that place should really be an officially published VRP or at least mentioned in the AIP.
Having said all that, we do have plans to enable more smaller towns to appear in our maps at high zoom levels, but we are not there yet. Hopefully later this year.
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s1l3ntgl1d3r
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+xI have attached a screenshot of SkyDemon in that region at 250k scale. I think we label plenty of towns. Are you navigating at an even larger map scale than this? Your screenshot looks almost like it's at 100k; perhaps you're flying a helicopter? I'm afraid we are not in the business of simply copying other charts. The cartographers who created the 500k Switzerland chart you are comparing with have made their own decisions about which towns to name at their fixed scale; SkyDemon supports many different scales but we cannot include small villages or even larger towns when they're right next to other (even larger) towns whose labels have already been included. We did review this in September last year and were able to include many more towns in Switzerland by switching data provider. At the moment when I look at the map at 250k zoom scale, like the screenshot I am attaching, I can see that there isn't really enough room for more town labels.  Hi Tim Thank you really much that you took the time to answer my question. I really like SD and I will keep my subscription for the moment. You asked what kind of Chart I am using vor VFR navigation? It is the Zürich Area Chart ICAO - 1:250000 (GND until FL 195). It would be great if the map would adapt to the "zoom level" and show the same names as this chart. This "issue" is known under VFR Pilots and is holding back a lot of customers to use SD here in Switzerland. Thank you anyways for your kind support in this matter! Regards Max
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