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9/9/2019 1:31 PM
 

Good points - so let me clarify my statements.  "Just a Navigation" tool is not my intended interpretation.  Our focus is navigation, and our features tend to derive from this. Navigation requires a flight plan.  And planning is easier with overlaid weather info.  Not to mention fuel prices, airport details, etc.  Real Plan makes this even easier.  And it's convenient to file a plan without exporting/importing to some other app or manually typing into another service.  And in flight navigation is improved with terrain awareness, synthetic vision, HITS, customizable instruments, airspace alerts, etc, etc, etc.  And we have other convience tools like sketches, real-view, timers, etc.  But these are all related to navigation/plannign/moving map sorts of stuff.  

So I'm not saying W&B is off the list - but it would be more of a tertiary tool than most of our features. And there are lots of free apps that do a good job, so including it wouldn't gain as much. 

CheckLists, otoh, add an obvious convenience - while in flight you typically don't want to exit your navigation app and launch another app.  Also the nav tool knows the selected aircraft and flight phase, so popping the list can be automated.  So I can see this being included before W&B.

 
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9/10/2019 5:09 PM
 

I think Hook and Cobra have provided a good discussion of the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB). What to include in an EFB depends on company strengths and the intended market(s).  FlightPlan Go is rather popular among corporate pilots who have broader needs than General Aviation.  (Am I recalling correctly that they were recently purchased by Garmin?)

I completely agree that we don't want to see an excellent core product like the iFly cluttered with apps that are market specific.  An iFly Pro or separate downloadable modules might be an approach.  In any case, I'm puzzeled by an EFB that does not include W&B.

 
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9/10/2019 6:37 PM
 

TonyD wrote:
An iFly Pro or separate downloadable modules might be an approach.  In any case, I'm puzzeled by an EFB that does not include W&B.

W&B wouldn't take much code to include in iFly, so I predict it will be included someday.


Rusty IFR pilot. Liking iFly GPS.
 
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9/10/2019 6:48 PM
 

I gotta agree.  I think W&B does belong in the app.  It's part of prudent flight planning, but it should also be revisited at any mid-trip stop where conditions (fuel, passengers, baggage) have changed enough that a prudent pilot would know that they may be approaching the edges of their aircraft's CG/weight envelope. 

Checklists also belong in the app.  They can both be a part of planning (depending on what the checklist is for), or execution (pre-flight, in-flight, post-flight).

In my mind, iFly should aid the pilot from the beginning (including planning) to the end of a flight (including post-flight checklist and flight plan closure).  BTW, that's also a nice selling point: End-to-End flight aid.  Earlier I said iFly is a set of tools, but it's really one tool with an integrated suite of features.  Any feature that fits in the timeline of planning/preflight/flight/postflight, and aids the pilot in one of those areas, should be considered for inclusion.  [Easy for me propose, since it's up to Brian to dispose.]  But again, in my mind's eye, that's the purpose of this product.


Powrachute PC 2000; Aventura II; Cherokee 180
 
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9/10/2019 10:43 PM
 

I'm puzzled by the requests for features like checklists, and W&B.  If we're considering the iFly 7XX units, they have to be plugged in to be useful, so it's not likely I'd be using for a walk around checklist.  Even though the 740 has a battery, it likely wouldn't last through the entire walk around, and I'd find it tedious to keep returning to the cockpit to follow and/or annotate the checklist.  I don't take that many flights that I figure I'll be anywhere near the W&B envelope for my aircraft, so I don't give that much thought.  I'd think that any glide ring would be premised on the max weight, in order to err on the safe side. 

If iFly is being used with a tablet, these devices are simple and quick enough to change back and forth between apps, it seems like I'd just as soon use which ever other app I deem best for the task at hand. 

I'd just as soon the iFly team put their efforts into incorporating the in-flight features like: Glide Ring, search patterns (or perhaps user designed flight paths), incorporating all current and future ADS-B features, nearest ATC/AFSS frequencies, and probably a host of other features.

 
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