We're still reviewing the PLOG format. Formulas for transforming track to heading to account for wind, and getting groundspeed from that, are documented all over the place. SkyDemon also has climbs and descents to take into account when it calculates the actual time and average groundspeed of a leg.

Hi, I'm testing the SkyDemon evaluation at the moment and I can see that the PLOG format could be a stumbling block for me also. I too would prefer a larger print on A5 paper. Can you please confirm whether or not it's possible to customise the PLOG? Or save it to HTML, Excel...?

Secondly, is the method or formula for calculating the wind heading and speed used on each leg of the PLOG documented anywhere?

Thank you.

good initiative with a concrete example

I would also welcome a possibility to tick which columns to print and which not (as I wouldn't print MSA and IAS)

Milan

A few suggestions...



1. How about an intermediate stage between the chart and the print preview for the PLOG? When you select Print Centre - PLOG you get a display where you can select which columns you want to print. That way pilots can select as many or as few columns of data as they want.



2. The 'From' and 'To' points are listed vertically so that the 'To' for one leg becomes the 'From' for the next. The rest of the data line is then 'interlaced' as in the following...







3. Numeric data in the PLOG is centred in the cells.



4. Nav aids are checked, using Ident and Freq, so that they are not duplicated, thus saving space on the page (possibly do the same for ATC agencies, using Call-sign and Freq.



5. Different page settings for different options (i.e. set PLOG to print in A4 landscape, the airfield data in 2 per page, the NOTAMs and MET in A4 portrait, etc) and that SkyDemon remembers your settings so you don't have to keep changing settings for every option and every time you enter Print Centre.





Just food for thought. What do others think???



MFC



[Edited to add image in #2 as text did not show idea clearly]

Talk of a spreadsheet makes sense. If you were to write an unformatted CSV, ideally bar separated, then easy to write a Macro in Excel or similar to import and reformat to ones preferences.



Otherwise one trick I used to use for manual PLOGs was to avoid having From & To on the same line, A single column will do, especially if offset half a line



cct

just in case you want also my contribution...

in the cockpit I found the route data rather small (I also use A5 kneepad) and the frequency data rather big in comparison to the route data

I would not mind to have the airports just by ICAO code

Some constructive thoughts perhaps?



1. I think it would be good to get a general purpose PLOG that prints straight out. Some people might want to fiddle around in Excel, but most of us just want to hit a print out and get a nice one.

2. The major issue I find is the huge variation in font size between the From/To section and the frequencies and beacons. It might be useful first off to fix a narrower set of font ranges which are generally considered readable. I think people will accept the odd page throw if they are flying through a morasse of frequencies.

3. It would be good to make the From/To items as abbreviated as possible. Just posting the four letter airfields (as suggestd above) is probably too cryptic for my taste. However, I would suggest dropping the lat/longs from the user defined waypoints, and dropping the four letter codes from airfield names. It might also be useful having a look on the database for long names and see if they could be shortened safely. For example, 'Wolverhampton' would be OK rather than 'Wolverhampton Halfpenny Green (EGBO'). You colour code the airfields purple anyway so they don't need any more info in my view.



Skydemon wins out because is it so intuitive and simple to use. I think you are right to avoid pandering to the huge variation in demand from the user community.

The Plog can be transposed into SD mobile in big letters and columns which appear in a landscape format that can be scrolled through seamlessly viewing say 2, 3 or even 4 columns at a time in a touch screen set. I know this would mean more work for Tim & Co. However, this can be relied upon in the air, leaving the printed smaller version as a standby and for the pilot´s documentation throughout the flight. With such an arrangement one could have a large number of automatically up-dating parameters readily accessible throughout the flight, including but not limited to sunrise and sunset times.


Very Newbytheway

DurhamTeaseAirport

Dear Tim,



it's really difficult to have a Plog that fits for all users, so could you resume the "save as..." option that I remember was in Sky Demon 1, allowing users to save the Plog in Excel format? So we could arrange columns and rows as we prefer without need of programming effort.



Thank you for your attention, and for this amazing software!



--CO2

--Charlie Oscar 2

It would be useful to have an option to shorten the names of waypoints somehow. Perhaps using ICAO for airfields. If I am using A5 kneeboard format, having a column wide enough to accommodate 'Chichester Goodwood (ICAO)' means that the fonts for numbers get very small. Maybe wrap the text but break with a hyphen so one could retain a fairly narrow column width? If I add a user defined waypoint I get a very long pair of coordinates which also then reduces the font size for numbers.



I actually gain a little bit of font size by selecting orientation landscape, and then setting left margin to 1 and right to 135. I don't use the two per page because that sometimes makes the PLOG a little bit smaller than necessary. It is annoying that I can't set that as a default that is saved in settings. I have to keep reformatting every time.



Great package - keep the improvements coming!



Nick