SkyDemon Plan Documentation: Ready to Fly
Producing a PLOG
When you have planned your route, analysed for suitability and are happy with all your calculations, you are of course ready to fly. At this point SkyDemon can produce a PLOG for you to use in-flight, with much of the data you'll need at your fingertips. To produce a PLOG, press Ctrl-G or click the clipboard button on the toolbar. This will not actually print anything (yet), just generate the PLOG for you to view.
Before the PLOG appears you will see several options available for customising it. Depending upon the options selected, SkyDemon will analyse your route looking for radio aids that are potentially useful, airfields you pass close to which offer services you might need and any other frequencies that you'll need for penetrating airspace enroute.
Once you are viewing the PLOG you can click the Print button to print it. Use the Page Setup and Print Preview buttons to first format it to your liking; you may wish to print to A5 for instance.
Although the PLOG output cannot be customised within SkyDemon beyond the options you are shown before you produce it, you can save the output to your computer as an HTML page and then use any HTML editor (Microsoft Word will do) to make small tweaks such as adding further frequencies or removing something that is not required.
Exporting to Devices
SkyDemon can automatically export your route to a number of different GPS devices that you can then use in flight to take you through the exact route you have planned.
SkyDemon Mobile
To export to a SkyDemon Mobile device, first ensure the device is plugged in and connected via ActiveSync (or Mobile Device Centre in Vista+). Alternatively, if your device does not support ActiveSync connection, just insert the SD card on which SkyDemon Mobile is installed into the PC on which you are running SkyDemon Plan. Then in SkyDemon Plan, simply click the Sync button on the toolbar (a pair of green arrows). The following actions are performed during a sync:
- Routes are copied from your PC to the device
- NOTAM are copied from your PC to the device
- User waypoints are copied from your PC to the device
- The latest charts are copied from your PC to the device
- Flight logs are copied from the device to your PC
Garmin and Magellan Devices
We provide support for exporting routes to these devices. First ensure the device is plugged in and has been recognised by Windows. Then in SkyDemon Plan, open the Route menu and choose Export then the option for your device. The route will be automatically named and exported, and will be available for selection from the route library on the device.
If the export is not successful, your device may be connected on a nonstandard port. You can change the port used by SkyDemon to communicate with your device in the Preferences window under the Misc tab. By default it is set to "Auto" which connects by USB to Garmin devices and COM1 to Magellan devices.
SkyMap Devices
These popular devices such as the IIIc are supported for direct route export within SkyDemon Plan. Ensure your device is connected to the COM port specified in Preferences, then open the Route menu, choose Export then To Skymap Device. You will need to specify which slot to export the route into on the device.
Other Ways to Export
SkyDemon is all about planning your flight, so we want you to be able to take your plan and transfer it to as many mediums as possible.
Other File Formats
By opening the Route menu and choosing Export -> To File you can save a copy of your route in either GPX or RTE format. These are both popular formats for expressing route plans, and you may find that if you have a device that isn't directly supported by SkyDemon there is software for that device that can accept one of these formats. GPX in particular is designed specifically with this intention in mind.
ICAO Flight Plans
SkyDemon cannot directly file a flightplan for you, but it can produce one in the right format, making it easy for you to copy and paste into another application designed for directly filing flightplans, such as AFPEx in the UK. Open the Route menu and choose Export -> To ICAO Flight Plan to access the functionality. You will see that your route has been expressed in ICAO-compliant format, with waypoints expressed either as identifiers, VOR radials or lat/long pairs. Changes in speed and level are encoded into the route plan.
Chart Printing
You can print a copy of the chart by opening the Route menu and choosing Print Chart. A preview appears first, to show you what will be printed. The output is not designed to be used for navigation, but is an accurate representation of what is onscreen, including the route you have planned.
TAF, METAR and NOTAM Brief Printing
This option in the Route menu allows you to print a record of the TAF and METAR bulletins visible in SkyDemon as well as their entire NOTAM narrow route brief.
GPS Navigation Facilities
SkyDemon Plan includes most of the GPS navigation facilities of its sister product, SkyDemon Mobile, which is designed for use on handheld devices. We include the functionality in SkyDemon Plan so customers with netbooks or tablet PCs can use same tools without needing to purchase an additional device.
To use the GPS navigation functionality your device will need some kind of GPS device, obviously. Under Preferences, in the Connectivity section, set the COM port and baud rate than will be used to communicate with your device. Then, on the main menu, click the Start GPS button to switch into navigation mode. You will see the display change and all being well, once a GPS fix has been obtained, you will see the aircraft symbol and your PC has been transformed into a powerful in-flight navigation tool.
The GPS navigation functionality provided by SkyDemon Plan and SkyDemon Mobile is virtually identical, so for a better understanding of how to use the facilities, please refer to the SkyDemon Mobile Documentation.
Simulation
If you don't have any GPS hardware but just want to play with the GPS navigation features, you can turn on the simulator. From the Tools menu select Start Simulator, and the software will change to navigation mode just as if it were receiving GPS data. The aircraft can be controlled with the keyboard: left arrow turns left, right arrow turns right, up arrow increases speed, down arrow decreases speed, plus increases altitude, minus decreases altitude. You can also press Q to advance the aircraft by one mile, if you're impatient. All the warnings and navigation aids will be active as if you were in flight, but a flight log will not be produced.
The simulator is a great way to try the SkyDemon navigation facilities before choosing to purchase the SkyDemon Mobile software or a GPS device.
Flight Log Analysis
Maintaining a collection of logs of all the flights you have undertaken is a great way to remember them. SkyDemon Plan makes it easy to download logs from your GPS device or import them from file into a library, and explore them on the maps.
If you are using SkyDemon Mobile, your flight logs are automatically copied into your library when you sync with the device (see above). If you are using a Garmin, Magellan or SkyMap device you will need to open the Tools menu and choose Import Flight Log to see a list of available logs on your connected device. You can choose to save a copy of the log in your library when you do this.
To open a flight log from your library, open the Tools menu and choose Open Flight Log. Your entire library is displayed, including the start and destination waypoints, date of the flight and its distance. To open a flight log from a GPX file, open the Tools menu and choose Import Flight Log -> From File. You will be prompted to locate the file.
When a flight log is opened, it is displayed in the main map as a coloured line showing the route flown, and also in its own dedicated window as the bottom of the screen, similar to the Enroute Features window, showing a vertical profile. This provides a definitive record of how the flight interacted with terrain, obstructions, airspace and other features. When you move the mouse cursor around in this window, the status bar shows you the parameters at that point in the flight: altitude, speed and elapsed time (where available).
