+x

Tim Dawson - 12/18/2017 1:22:22 PM

Thank you for your insight into what pilots will do. However, we have some perspective on this ourselves. Please do not assume we make these changes lightly, or for no good reason.

‌‌How many times do you typically pick your aircraft for a route you're planning?

A bit of a dismissive tone there, if you don't mind me saying, Tim. 
‌
‌In your last Newsletter you wrote:
"‌While planning your flight we generate warnings for penetration of controlled or dangerous airspace, planning below MSA, and a few other things. These warnings have always been displayed in the Flight Details tab but unfortunately many people do not know about that tab. We have therefore brought them out into their own Warnings tab, which serves as an excellent reference while planning a flight to quickly check that the hazards we’re telling you about are hazards you’re aware of"
‌
I'd be interested in knowing how you assessed that 'many people' didn't know about the flight details tab? It was so intrinsic to the workflow in setting up the parameters for a route - like date and time - that I find it quite difficult to understand (or even believe) that a great number of people weren't aware of its existence and would thus miss potential warnings. 
‌
‌I would suggest that the same people who couldn't find where to put the date and time of their flight previously will have even greater difficulty finding it two levels down in the Route menu.
‌

On the contrary, if somebody's desire is to set route parameters like takeoff time, speed etc, then the Route menu is an obvious first choice if someone doesn't know about the Flight Details tab.

Yes, a huge percentage of our user base have‌/had no idea about the existence of the Flight Details tab. Nobody wishes this weren't the case more than us. Work a day on the customer support phone in our office and you quickly get a very specific insight into the capabilities of the average SkyDemon user, and our every effort (daily) goes into making life easier for those users.‌

+x

Tim Dawson - 12/19/2017 4:06:28 PM

On the contrary, if somebody's desire is to set route parameters like takeoff time, speed etc, then the Route menu is an obvious first choice if someone doesn't know about the Flight Details tab.

Yes, a huge percentage of our user base have‌/had no idea about the existence of the Flight Details tab. Nobody wishes this weren't the case more than us. Work a day on the customer support phone in our office and you quickly get a very specific insight into the capabilities of the average SkyDemon user, and our every effort (daily) goes into making life easier for those users.‌

By helping one set of users, and disarming another by removing a well used shortcut!

‌‌This may not be an issue for some pilots who perhaps fly once a week, but some of us fly for a living on a daily basis and every effort goes into streamlining our operation, whether its the pre-flight planning, enroute flight management or post-flight debriefing. 
‌
‌The process is less efficient now and workflow is broken up (I just learned GAR filing has moved too). Shortcuts are very important to us, especially when we use them a lot throughout the day (we may have to plan multiple flights per day, using different aircraft, using different payloads & different fuel amounts) - multiply that for a big company with lots of users.
‌
‌The Flight Details tab was like a "Go To" for the entire setup of a flight. It even had a big green button, easier to use with big fingers than the top menu, also its placement on the screen meant you didn't have to reach too far with your right thumb/finger, now you definitely have to lift your hand to reach the menu. As some of the original Flight Details elements are split, it means more touch actions per flight (drilling up/down through Route menu, back/forth Warnings tab).
‌
‌These workflow issues need to be addressed, like the "Close" button on the W&B screen needs to change to a "Back" button to return you to Flight Details and not kick you out to the map screen (assuming this is just a bug and not intentional).
‌
To clarify, ‌I think the Skydemon product is great. I love the new "route auto save to cloud" feature, though thats been on my wishlist for a longtime (I wish it could have been extended to aircraft and user waypoints). In my opinion, the Flight Details change was a knee jerk reaction and could have been better implemented, considering Skydemon's history with excellent design choices in the past.

Tim, as I said I just found out that GAR filing now via the Warnings tab instead of Flight Details, hence the back & forth.

To answer your request, typical workflow consists of:

Flight Planning:
1.1) Create route using map
1.2) Select aircraft (occasionally check Empty W&B figures are correct compared to W&B Schedule)
1.3) If it's a quote, then set zero wind, (may be across multiple aircraft types)
1.4) Get total flight time
1.5) Calculate fuel requirements, and W&B, which then determines if
1.6) Route may need tweaking for extra fuel stop(s), means back & forth to fuel/W&B figures, and check new total flight
1.7) Route may need new user waypoint(s) (helicopter landing site), using postcode search etc and tweak using satellite view, saving user waypoints to cloud each time so consistent across my iPad and iPhone.
1.8) Set Land Here (creating multiple sectors)
1.9) For each sector, set takeoff times, fuel & W&B figures
1.10) Check Plog (each sector)
1.11) Tweak Altitudes if required due to MSA (IFR), Airspace, best Altitude for Flight etc
1.12) Save route (this may occur at various stages above too)

Before departure:
2.1) Open route (as may not already be open) and check all figures are completed and correct (aircraft, fuel, W&B, flight times) for each sector
2.2) Check Notams and Wx (this may force last minute route changes due to RA(T) etc)
2.3) Create Briefing Pack(s) for the main passenger sector(s) and share via email to Ops
2.4) Check charts & airfield plates up to date
2.5) copy W&B figures (aircraft tech log for each sector - Part-CAT requirement)
2.6) copy initial fuel figures (for aircraft tech log)
2.7) Submit GAR (if required)
2.8) Submit Flight Plan (if required)

End of flight:
3.1) Before pressing "Stop navigating", take screenshot of Pilot Log to capture the ATA for each sector (this is an area where the Debriefing Pack could be improved to include a decent Plog with post-flight details)

That's all fine until customer makes last minute changes to route, timings, passenger details, and sometimes aircraft.

That's all I can think of from the top of my head. Just hopes it's constructive enough for you to see why the workflow is now less efficient.

It would very easy to say something like "why don't I change the order of some of the above to combine tasks", however it's not as simple as that, and often these actions are quite quick (for me at least). Figures require continued cross-checking.

Plume_tray, thank you, that is very helpful. I hadn't realised you were a corporate user; please feel free to liaise directly with your corporate licensing contact at SkyDemon about your specific needs as we do appreciate that workflow is likely to be different from leisure pilots, which of course make up the majority of our user base.

I've just installed the latest Beta. which addresses this issue in an elegant way.

I can only test it on my iPhone, but so far, so good - Thanks Tim!‌‌