SkyDemon Plan Documentation: Getting Started
Installation
To install the software, run the .msi installer file you have downloaded from our website. Windows will guide you through the installation process and install SkyDemon on to your computer. A shortcut to SkyDemon is created in your Start Menu.
We allow anybody to download the software free of charge, and it defaults to a 30 day trial of the full functionality. If you're a paid-up customer you simply download your license file and this transforms SkyDemon into the non-evaluation version.
Starting the Software
To start the software, locate the shortcut to SkyDemon in your start menu and activate it.
SkyDemon User Interface
SkyDemon offers a great deal of features and exposes most of them through mini-windows spread around the main map, which is of course the focal point.
At the bottom is the Enroute Features window, which shows you a side-on view of your planned route including terrain, airspace, obstructions and other features of interest. There are also buttons to switch between this window and others also attached to the bottom of the screen: Route Plan, which presents your route textually; METAR Decode, which presents a decoded view of METARs; and TAF Decode, which presents a decoded view of TAFs.
On the right you will see the NOTAM and Flight Details windows, plus buttons to switch to the Weight and Balance and Weather windows. There are still more windows, which are not displayed by default; these can be accessed via the Window menu. You can close any of the windows and bring them back again, also via the Window menu.
TIP: SkyDemon Windows can be resized and moved to other locations on the screen by dragging on their edges, buttons or title bars. Feel free to move the windows around in order to optimise for your own preferred usage of space. Their position and size will be remembered next time you run SkyDemon.
There are three toolbars at the top of the screen. The upper toolbar contains buttons that help you access many of the most common functions in SkyDemon. The lower toolbars contain buttons that control which aeronautical features, geographical features and weather are drawn in the maps.
Using the Chart Manager
The first time you run SkyDemon, you will need to install at least one chart. The software will prompt you to do this by displaying the Charts window, which can be accessed at any time by pressing the Charts button on the toolbar. The Charts window lets you choose which charts you want and automates the process of downloading, installing and updating them as required. Just put a tick next to the charts you want to use and press Apply Changes. You can observe progress as the charts are downloaded and installed. When finished, the window disappears leaving you with the map.
From time to time, SkyDemon will display a warning in the Flight Details window to notify you that the charts you have installed are out of date. When this happens, simply click on the warning and the Charts window is displayed. It will show you which charts will be updated, then simply press Apply Changes and SkyDemon will take care of the rest.
You can change the visual style of the charts shown in SkyDemon to loosely match the style of many popular paper VFR charts. At the bottom of the Charts window is a dropdown allowing you to switch between the different styles. At the time of writing, SkyDemon supports its native chart style, UK VFR style, French VFR style, German VFR style and American Sectional VFR style. In this way a pilot who is comfortable with the chart style of their own country can view charts for all supported countries in that style.
Exploring the Map
The main map is the most powerful asset in SkyDemon. It presents one of the most intuitive dynamically-generated views of terrain, airspace and geography available. To move the map around, click on an empty area (i.e. not a waypoint) and drag the mouse. The map will move with the mouse pointer. You can explore the whole world this way, though obviously areas without charts installed will look rather sparse.
Zooming in and out of the map is easiest done by scrolling the mouse wheel, and you can also use the zoom buttons on the mapping toolbar or press + and - on your keyboard. You can zoom out to view the whole planet or in so far that about a mile fills the whole screen. Some features disappear when you are zoomed out in order to save space, and some things appear clearer or reveal more information when you are zoomed in. If you cannot see a waypoint that you expect to, try zooming in a little.
Most mapped features can be turned on and off with the mapping toolbar and the options under the Mapping menu. You will see there are buttons representing most types of airspace and point features. Most of these buttons are on by default, but can be turned off. Some of the buttons, such as for airways and airfields, bring up options windows so you can more specifically define which objects are shown on the map. For example, you can hide all airfields whose longest runway is less than a certain length.
Towards the right of the map toolbar there is a button showing levels. Click on this to bring up the Adjust Clipping window, where you can turn off airspace above a certain level. Don't worry about missing any important airspace if you set it too low: when you've plotted your route all airspace at the levels you have plotted is shown regardless of the clipping level set. You can also set Weekend View, which hides any airspace not active at weekends. Don't forget that a NOTAM might activate a piece of airspace not normally active at weekends.
Hovering your mouse pointer above objects in the map allows you to inspect their properties. If there are multiple objects under the cursor, which there often are, all objects are shown. This enables you to instantly determine the vertical boundaries of a piece of airspace. Furthermore, you can right-click on any part of the map for more options, including one that will open Google Maps at your chosen location for satellite imagery.
Locating Features
Instead of dragging the map around to try and find a feature, you can use the Find tool. There are two ways of using it. First, you can just type into the box in the top toolbar labelled Find. When you hit enter, the first search result is shown on the map. Pressing enter again goes to the second result, and so on. You can see how many results there are on the status bar when searching like this.
Alternatively, you can press Ctrl-F or select Find from the Edit menu to open the waypoint finder window. Typing in this window brings up a list of all results, with icons differentiating the different feature types, so you can choose the one you want. When you press OK the map jumps to the location of the feature.
