Aviation GPS

New: vertical flight planning • Your aircraft: SET > AIRCRAFT holds simple climb, cruise and descent figures for each aircraft you fly. A built-in GENERIC light single is used until you add your own. • Planned altitudes: every flight plan has a ROUTE ALT, and each leg can have its own altitude. Switch on VNAV in the FPL menu to see the ROUTE ALT and each leg's altitude and minimum safe altitude on the FPL page, in red when a leg is planned too low. RAISE TO MSA lifts every low leg in one tap. • VSD page (vertical situation display): your flight from the side. ROUTE shows the whole plan with the planned climb, cruise and descent at your aircraft's rates, each leg's MSA, terrain and obstacles colored by clearance, and the airspace you pass through. AHEAD, automatic in flight, shows the next 60 NM along your track with your altitude and vertical speed. Drag to scroll, pinch to zoom, tap a leg or drag its handle to change its altitude, tap an airspace to select it on the maps too. • VNAV page: plan a descent (or climb) to a target altitude, MSL or above the airport, at a distance before or after a waypoint of your route, at the vertical speed you choose. It shows the vertical speed required, and the distance and time to the start of the descent. The VNAV button sits right of MSG. With FOLLOW FPL on, VNAV plans the descent to each lower leg by itself. • Top of climb and top of descent are marked on NAV1 and NAV2. New • Arrival alarm: ARRIVAL AT WAYPOINT when you are within the distance you set of your destination. • NEXT DTK and TURN TO: a minute before each turn of your flight plan, MSG shows the next desired track, then TURN TO while you turn. • GPS messages: POOR GPS COVERAGE when the position stops updating in flight, and DEGRADED ACCURACY when it is only accurate to more than 100 m. • VNAV messages: APPROACHING VNAV PROFILE a minute before the descent starts, and APPROACHING TARGET ALTITUDE within 500 ft of it. • Every alarm and message can be switched off in SET > MESSAGES. Obstacles have their own OBSTACLE ALERTS setting, and AUTO MSG CLOSE sets how long an automatically opened message stays. • Nearest airport criteria: NRST MIN RWY and NRST RWY SURFACE in SET > SEARCH & DATABASE leave airports without a long enough runway, or the right surface, out of the NRST list. • New data fields: course to steer (CTS), minimum and enroute safe altitude (MSA, ESA), height above ground (AGL), total trip time and ETA at the destination. • FPL page: while you fly the plan, the cumulative distance counts down from your position. After a Direct-To that skips waypoints, each skipped one shows ABM with the time you pass abeam it. • LOG: MAP shows a saved flight on NAV1 and NAV2 as an amber trail. • For a VOR the WPT page shows today's magnetic variation (VAR) and, where published, the declination its radials are aligned to (DECL, from the AIP) for over 1,300 VORs and TACANs in more than 70 countries. A radial with a tilde (R~210) is an estimate. Stations whose VOR has been withdrawn now show as DMEs. • SIM page: the new VS mode climbs or descends to the set altitude at an adjustable vertical speed. SIM starts a flight plan at its planned altitude, or at a safe altitude for the terrain along the route. • SET > SAVE & RESET: save your settings and restore them later, or export them to a file and import them on another iPhone, iPad or Android device. Improvements • Route and leg altitudes are set on two wheels, thousands and hundreds. • The FPL page uses one text size throughout, as large as the screen allows. • A tap on a flashing MSG opens only the messages; the MSG menu comes with the next tap. • A tapped obstacle gets a green ring on the maps, and a selected NOTAM shows whatever the declutter level. • NAV1 rotates smoothly in track-up. • The distance readout no longer flickers its last digit with GPS noise. • SET has a single RESET ALL SETTINGS button, which asks first and lists exactly what it resets and what it keeps.