By Aucky - 7/9/2013 8:10:49 PM
Hi all, I fly HEMS in the southern UK and have been using Skydemon for sometime, in my capacity as an instructor, charter pilot and now HEMS, I'm looking for the best paperless solution for rapid response flight planning & nav, and to aid with inflight decision making. SkyDemon has been an invaluable tool for some time especially with international navigation, flight planning, daily notams, avoiding RA(T)'s etc but in the HEMS role the one area where is really lacks is the inability to view detail for approaching, and recce'ing any off-airfield landing sites, something that for such a good program has become a bit of a gripe, found by many helicopter pilots I'm sure. The ability to input a grid reference is very helpful indeed, but there is no way of checking whether the grid-ref points to the right place with any detail. For this we would usually go to a 1:50k OS map (or even street atlas in HEMS) and find ourself leaving the SkyDemon app for charts in MemoryMap etc
I'd rather not move away from SkyDemon as it's been a helpful tool for some time, but I'm wondering whether there are any plans to integrate any of the more traditional maps into the software, to enable us to view Ordinance Survey charts or CAA charts (1:250k and 1:50k Heliroutes) but maintain the useful features of the map. I know Runway HD are offering exactly that (national coverage of 1:250k CAA, 1:500k CAA, 1:50k OS, 1:50k Helilanes, Grid-ref and postcode go-to's) all via subscription but the app lacks the SkyDemon user-friendliness and aesthetics at present, and lacks some of the useful areas that I've become fond of with SkyDemon. I appreciate that the SkyDemon built in charts offer a lovely 'clutter-free' interface when travelling longer distances, but for flying helicopters the use of 1:250k CAA and Ordinance Survery charts really are a vital tool and any future plans to offer this as a paid additional option would be truly exciting. Much appreciated.
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By Tim Dawson - 7/10/2013 3:00:13 PM
Hello Aucky,
Thank you for your feedback. We are aware that helicopter pilots often require specialised maps for certain missions, but I'm afraid it is not our goal to become a product that hosts specialised maps. I have no doubt that over time the amount of detail in terms of roads etc that is available on our maps will increase, but it is very unlikely that we would ever resell Ordnance Survey maps, for example.
We are aware that other apps offer this service and that some pilots may therefore choose those apps over SkyDemon. However, because those apps simply move static charts around an aircraft symbol, they are usually very cheap indeed. It therefore becomes an easy proposition to switch away from SkyDemon for the highly detailed part of the journey, and switch back for the enroute parts. A combination of two apps seems ideal in this case.
Tim
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