Xavier
|
|
Group: Forum Members
Posts: 26,
Visits: 83
|
I'm a PPL instructor in France. A French regulation makes it mandatory to overfly cities and towns at a minimum height depending on the size of the town. The official regulation (arreté de 1957) says that the size of the town are shown on the IGN (Institut Geographique National) 1/500000 map. So I must in practice teach navigation with that IGN map as it is the only source of information available. As it is not available in Skydemon I just cannot recommend Skydemon to my students, and they go for SDVFR or Flymate instead. It's a shame as Skydemon is I think the best VFR navigation app. Once they get used to another app, they won't change.
|
|
|
Gerhard66
|
|
Group: Forum Members
Posts: 168,
Visits: 355
|
+xI'm a PPL instructor in France. A French regulation makes it mandatory to overfly cities and towns at a minimum height depending on the size of the town. The official regulation (arreté de 1957) says that the size of the town are shown on the IGN (Institut Geographique National) 1/500000 map. So I must in practice teach navigation with that IGN map as it is the only source of information available. As it is not available in Skydemon I just cannot recommend Skydemon to my students, and they go for SDVFR or Flymate instead. It's a shame as Skydemon is I think the best VFR navigation app. Once they get used to another app, they won't change.
Hi C82R, I was just curious, because I could not believe, that one has to check maps other than the official aeronautical charts. French AIP ENR 1.1-3 references to ICAO charts, in which the size class of a town is shown. As this information seems to be available in the official aviation data world, I could imagine to have it implemented in SD by using different symbols on the SD charts. It will be a special piece of software for France: i.e. in German ICAO charts, towns are classified by the number of inhabitants and there is no such special regulation.
|
|
|
Xavier
|
|
Group: Forum Members
Posts: 26,
Visits: 83
|
+x+xI'm a PPL instructor in France. A French regulation makes it mandatory to overfly cities and towns at a minimum height depending on the size of the town. The official regulation (arreté de 1957) says that the size of the town are shown on the IGN (Institut Geographique National) 1/500000 map. So I must in practice teach navigation with that IGN map as it is the only source of information available. As it is not available in Skydemon I just cannot recommend Skydemon to my students, and they go for SDVFR or Flymate instead. It's a shame as Skydemon is I think the best VFR navigation app. Once they get used to another app, they won't change.
Hi C82R, I was just curious, because I could not believe, that one has to check maps other than the official aeronautical charts. French AIP ENR 1.1-3 references to ICAO charts, in which the size class of a town is shown. As this information seems to be available in the official aviation data world, I could imagine to have it implemented in SD by using different symbols on the SD charts. It will be a special piece of software for France: i.e. in German ICAO charts, towns are classified by the number of inhabitants and there is no such special regulation.
It's the map I was talking about. The 1/500000 IGN ICAO Map. It is only available from IGN. The official size of the towns are nowhere else available. You can freely access to the map through https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/.IGN is the sole ICAO maps publisher to provide the information. Without the 1/500000 IGN ICAO map you just can't make sure that you are not braking the rule when overflying a town below 5000ft AGL.
As an instructor, I hence must demand that my students use this map. If they want to use an app, I cannot recommend Skydemon and it's a shame. So it will be Airmate.
|
|
|
Tim Dawson
|
|
Group: Forum Members
Posts: 8K,
Visits: 9K
|
It sounds like you're saying that France has published a certain class of data which pilots must use, in some situations, but only via one particular chart that needs to be purchased. This would be unusual. SkyDemon does not include enroute charts other than our own vector charts, as they are inflexible and always out of date.
There is little point in mentioning other apps that do include charts from third parties. We all know they exist.
|
|
|
Daniel_KDF
|
|
Group: Forum Members
Posts: 57,
Visits: 396
|
+xIt's the map I was talking about. The 1/500000 IGN ICAO Map. It is only available from IGN. The official size of the towns are nowhere else available. You can freely access to the map through https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/.IGN is the sole ICAO maps publisher to provide the information. Without the 1/500000 IGN ICAO map you just can't make sure that you are not braking the rule when overflying a town below 5000ft AGL.
One might want to add that you need to enter "Carte OACI VFR" in the search box on https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr to find & open the map.
This is how the color coding looks like:
|
|
|
Tony N
|
|
Group: Forum Members
Posts: 335,
Visits: 2.4K
|
This would be a useful chart to have available. Or, somehow, for SD to to depict town sizes in accordance with the map legend. This is one reason why I always take a French IGN paper chart with me when flying in France. Tony
|
|
|
KimW
|
|
Group: Forum Members
Posts: 42,
Visits: 0
|
+xIt sounds like you're saying that France has published a certain class of data which pilots must use, in some situations, but only via one particular chart that needs to be purchased. This would be unusual. SkyDemon does not include enroute charts other than our own vector charts, as they are inflexible and always out of date.
There is little point in mentioning other apps that do include charts from third parties. We all know they exist. Question for you Tim. Skydemon depicts cities as area and towns with dots, is there a clear definition of the criteria of such classification. My ICAO map shows cities in area >2000 citizens and below as dots only. Does that corresponds with Skydemon vector maps or not? Next time flying in France I would then need to avoid overflying all cities depicted as an area (>2.000, hoping this follows the ICAO depiction in Skydemon, subject to Tim's verification) thus ensuring not to bust limits, alternatively bring the map specified for reference, but still using Skydemon as primary tool for planning and navigation. I imagine the only route Skydemon potentially could take, was to offer a depiction of cities more granular, in this case >10.000 and >100.000, however this would have to be a general classification by ICAO, but this seems to be a French classification only. I have not heard of any other country where there is altitude restrictions based on city size. Anyone?
|
|
|
Tony N
|
|
Group: Forum Members
Posts: 335,
Visits: 2.4K
|
I always carry a paper IGN chart with me when flying in France for the "town size" reason mentioned above. It would be great if SD could introduce an equivalent to the IGN chart...
Tony
|
|
|
Tim Dawson
|
|
Group: Forum Members
Posts: 8K,
Visits: 9K
|
It looks like it's done on "mean width" of the town, goodness knows how that is calculated and whether we would even arrive at the same exact results as the other chart.
The way we decide on what town dots/blobs to display at what zoom levels is dynamic and depends on how built-up each area/country is.
|
|
|
Xavier
|
|
Group: Forum Members
Posts: 26,
Visits: 83
|
So anyway you now know why French PPL students are not encouraged to use SkyDemon.
|
|
|