German VFR AIP becoming free of charge (starting from 01.2023)

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German VFR AIP becoming free of charge (starting from 01.2023)

Author	Message
Frans	Frans posted 8/4/2022 2:35:53 PM Topic Details Share Topic
Group: Forum Members Posts: 49, Visits: 27	From the 1st of January 2023, the German VFR AIP will become free of charge. (Source) Since Skydemon continues to sell the subscription for one year, how will this affect if I would extend my subscription? Do customers with a DFS subscription get a refund for the remaining days after begin 2023, or does Skydemon continue selling the DFS VFR charts as a premium add-on?
	Reply Like 5
Tim Dawson	Tim Dawson posted 8/5/2022 9:40:51 AM Post Details Share Post
Group: Forum Members Posts: 7.8K, Visits: 8.4K	Only a basic version of the VFR AIP will be free of charge. It will not contain all the features of the premium VFR AIP that exists today and that we sell licenses for. That is what I have been told by its publishers. Unfortunately nobody knows anything more at this stage, because the details of exactly what will be free and what will not, have not been worked out. Therefore, there is no current change to what we can license, which is a year's provision of the AIP VFR. My personal speculation is that the textual parts will become free but the charts will not.
	Reply Like 1
Urzwoo	U Urzwoo posted 8/15/2022 10:20:00 AM Post Details Share Post
U Group: Forum Members Posts: 11, Visits: 1	+x Tim Dawson - 8/5/2022 9:40:51 AM Only a basic version of the VFR AIP will be free of charge. It will not contain all the features of the premium VFR AIP that exists today and that we sell licenses for. That is what I have been told by its publishers. Unfortunately nobody knows anything more at this stage, because the details of exactly what will be free and what will not, have not been worked out. Therefore, there is no current change to what we can license, which is a year's provision of the AIP VFR. My personal speculation is that the textual parts will become free but the charts will not. IFR charts are available in the German AIP website and have been since 2020 —> https://aip.dfs.de/basicifr I appreciate the amount of work that goes into getting these charts into SD, but charging full price from 2023 for a free product seems extreme. As someone whose subscription is soon to end, clarification would be welcome, as I also subscribe to EasyVFR in order to get chart data into my Dynon HDX
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grahamb	grahamb posted 8/15/2022 10:31:40 AM Post Details Share Post
Group: Forum Members Posts: 507, Visits: 25K	Isn’t this thread about the VFR charts, which currently have to be paid for however you source them through?
	Reply Like 1
Tim Dawson	Tim Dawson posted 8/16/2022 9:30:34 AM Post Details Share Post
Group: Forum Members Posts: 7.8K, Visits: 8.4K	Nobody knows any more about the licensing of the German VFR AIP from 2023 than what I described above. As soon as they do, we'll have some answers too (hopefully).
	Reply Like 1
Urzwoo	U Urzwoo posted 8/16/2022 1:50:51 PM Post Details Share Post
U Group: Forum Members Posts: 11, Visits: 1	As I commented in an email to a colleague of yours, I find myself now in limbo. My DFS subscription runs out end of August & don’t know what the situation is re. 2023 onwards. A monthly subscription would be useful until facts have been clarified.
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Adam Erchegyi	Adam Erchegyi posted 8/16/2022 3:18:04 PM Post Details Share Post
Group: Forum Members Posts: 83, Visits: 2.2K	+x Urzwoo - 8/16/2022 1:50:51 PM As I commented in an email to a colleague of yours, I find myself now in limbo. My DFS subscription runs out end of August & don’t know what the situation is re. 2023 onwards. A monthly subscription would be useful until facts have been clarified. Man, that's 43 GBP for a year. How much do you expect to save, 20 bucks? Is that 0,1h of flying, or less?
	Reply Like 1
Urzwoo	U Urzwoo posted 8/16/2022 3:51:13 PM Post Details Share Post
U Group: Forum Members Posts: 11, Visits: 1	If you read my other comments you would see that I also have to subscribe to EasyVFR in order to get up to date data in my DynonHDX system. I asked the SkyDemon team at Aero 2022 about support for this possibility, but there was no interest. So for me the possibility of saving on paying for VFR charts (twice) for Germany is relevant. I fly a microlight and the whole idea of flying a small plane is to have fun and keep the costs down. Every little I save helps. p.s. I love SkyDemon - it’s far more intuitive than EasyVFR, but if I have to choose one or the other due to financial reasons, I’ll have to let SD go. Edited 8/16/2022 3:52:40 PM by Urzwoo
	Reply Like 2
Tim Dawson	Tim Dawson posted 8/17/2022 9:23:18 AM Post Details Share Post
Group: Forum Members Posts: 7.8K, Visits: 8.4K	Urzwoo, it isn't clear what you think we can do about this. I understand you'd like to be able to pay monthly for the DFS VFR AIP. That licensing option isn't currently available, to us or to you. Please just be patient until more information is available about the potential licensing changes to the product.
	Reply Like 4