SkyDemon Plan Briefing Features

Weather Briefing

When planning a route, weather from all stations near the route is automatically pulled down from the internet, where available. This includes both TAFs and METARs. Thresholds for what is considered "bad weather" are user-configurable, and when a station is reporting or forecasting bad weather a large cloud is drawn on the main map over the station. It is therefore very easy to load a saved route and get a quick indication if the enroute weather might prevent it from being flown safely. More detailed graphical presentations of weather are shown in the enroute features window relative to your route.

In the figure to the right, a route has been plotted that passes near Yeovilton airfield. The weather is instantly pulled down and since there is low cloud, a cloud appears on the main map above the airfield. In the enroute features view below, more detail can be seen: there are two cloud layers and it is raining.

Forecast Weather

Unless you're about to jump in the plane and fly right away, forecast weather is what you will want to look at. Our built-in TAF decoder takes the raw data supplied by weather stations and plots it in a much friendlier way, automatically highlighting conditions that could be hazardous in red.

Where extended forecast information exists, such as when weather is forecast to change or there are temporary periods of different conditions, these are also shown below the main report. The raw TAF data is of course available, for those more comfortable with it.

Observed Weather

For those who really are about to jump in the plane, the METAR decoder could come in handy. It shows the very latest reported weather from the selected stations. Observations include a little more detail than forecasts, such as pressure, temperature and dewpoint.

Again, any conditions that could be hazardous to flight are highlighted in red. Additionally, reports over a certain age are highlighted.

NOTAM Briefing

As your route is planned, SkyDemon automatically pulls down NOTAM data from relevant authorities and presents a thorough briefing of all notices applicable to the flight. At the same time, the NOTAM are drawn on the maps for a quick visual idea of where hazards are located. In regions where we do not support automatic NOTAM download, raw briefings can be pasted in from your local supplier.

NOTAM filtering allows you to restrict the view of notices to those effective between certain dates and times, or to those for specific types of flight (IFR or VFR). Additionally the textual briefing displayed can show either all NOTAMs for the selected flight information regions or just those near to your planned route. All NOTAMs below a certain configurable radius are plotted on the map, so it's easy to visually ascertain which are likely to be of interest to the flight. Tooltips for the NOTAMs reveal all the detail associated with them.

Our NOTAM data is supplied directly by Eurocontrol, the same agency that provides briefings for local ATS providers.

We colour-code the NOTAM drawn in the maps so that while remaining visually distinct with their magenta fill, their edges quickly distinguish what kind of activity is being notified. Activation and deactivation of airspace, air shows, mass aircraft transits and gliding competitions are just some of the activities highlighted.

Next: Ready to Fly