SkyDemon Forums

Heading changing and map position jumping around erratically

http://forums.skydemon.aero/Topic38328.aspx

By teba99 - 8/31/2025 8:54:16 PM

Hi,

Today on a local flight I was using SD 4.1.2.418 on an iPad Mini 5 (iOS 18.4) and had a weird behavior I'd never seen before:
The first approx. 25 minutes of the flight SD was behaving as expected (correct map position, correct heading, etc), using the built-in iPad location services (GPS). But suddenly, the heading of the plane kept changing erratically by large amounts (nose turning left or right by 20, 30, or more deg), and the map started jumping around by several miles at a time. It felt like SD was getting was erratic GPS data, however, the iPad always had a clear view of the sky. 

This went on for minutes. I then used the iOS app switcher to quit SD (swipe up) and restarted SD. After selecting "Go Flying" the map and heading behaved normally again and remained normal for the rest of the flight (15 mins).

Has anyone seen this before?

Thanks
By rv8ch - 2/5/2026 7:36:39 AM

teba99 - 9/2/2025 8:54:30 AM
Tim Dawson - 9/2/2025 8:41:56 AM
There isn't any processing, really. It just comes in and we display it. I haven't seen anything like this before.

Ok, thanks. Weird. There have been reports of GPS/GNSS jamming in Europe recently. But that wouldn't explain why the behavior suddenly normalized when I restarted SD.

I'll keep an eye on it.


I have seen this as well, but with two different external sources 1) SE2, 2) SafeSky receiving data from PowerFLARM Fusion.  When it happens the only "cure" is to stop navigating, and go flying with the internal GPS.  I have not seen this with the internal GPS.