SkyDemon Light is only a small subset of our main product, in terms of both features and chart coverage. If you find this free product useful, why not start a free 30-day trial of our full product?
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Wider Chart Coverage
Charts for most of Europe and some other parts of the world are included in the price. Unlike many vendors we do not charge for additional charts. Charts are loaded seamlessly for a contiguous display of airspace and other data wherever you might want to fly; there's no tedious switching between maps at borders. Our charts are updated automatically every 28 days, so you always have the latest data.
You've already seen the clever airspace decluttering that is possible in this free product, where the chart hides irrelevant airspace to make the map easier to interpret. We also offer Weekend View, where you can hide all airspace that is only active during the week. It's amazing how much clearer the chart becomes.
Virtual Radar View
This profile view of your planned route shows how it relates to terrain, airspace, wind and weather, airfields and other enroute landmarks. It makes it easy to alter the vertical plan for any leg of your journey, while bringing you an unprecedented level of situational awareness before you even take off. You can even see the cloud layers enroute as observed or predicted in METAR and TAF.
In flight, the Virtual Radar instrument shows you a real-time presentation of what's in front of you with your current trajectory. It looks much like the screenshot above, only with an aircraft symbol overlaid and trajectory line extending depicting speed and vertical movement. Once you've had it, you'll wonder how you ever managed without it.
Automatic TAF and METAR Briefing
As you plot a route, the latest TAF and METAR are automatically presented for all stations near your route and you'll see the weather symbols pop up onto the chart. This makes it very easy to tell at a glance what's going on (both observed and forecast) along your route. In a separate window they are fully decoded, and are of course available in their raw form if you prefer it.
Forecast Winds Aloft
Global winds aloft data is part of a standard SkyDemon subscription and wind vectors appear on the chart as soon as you start plotting a route. You can view the forecast wind anywhere you can plot a route, up to 15,000ft and up to 24 hours in the future. This data is automatically fed into your flight calculations, so there is rarely any need to manually enter the enroute wind velocity (though you can if you wish).
2-Click Flightplan Filing
Filing flightplans can be a pain, but not with SkyDemon. Once you've planned your route you can file a flightplan for it with only two clicks, assuming you have already configured your aircraft's details. You can have more than one plan filed at the same time (e.g. for a return journey) and you can cancel or close a plan from our website, using any device that has a web browser. There is a separate charge for this service: currently £10 to file an unlimited number of flightplans in the year to February 2012.
Detailed Airfield Plates
We maintain our own airfield plates for the UK and many other countries, which include a lot of detail. Having our own plates means we have the flexibility to display them in the best possible way, whether printing, viewing onscreen or viewing on a GPS navigation device. Simply zooming right in to a SkyDemon chart will reveal the runway layout at an airfield.
Performance Calculations
SkyDemon Plan automatically performs accurate calculations of fuel burn (and cost), enroute performance and weight and balance as you plan your flight. You can specify an hourly wet hire rate for the aircraft if you wish.
Much, Much More!
SkyDemon is a powerful product and offers many more intuitive features than it's practical to write about here (though we've certainly outlined the most important onces). It doesn't cost anything to try it, and we find that most people who try it love it. You can even try our GPS navigation technology in a simulator, where you control the aircraft with the keyboard, to see how you might benefit from using SkyDemon in the cockpit.