[Discussion] CaptainVFR is for navigation, or for planning?

[meirtolpin11]

I haven't had the chance to check the implementation details of the applications, but I suspect that those are web-view applications. Am I right?

If that's the case, will it work in offline mode?

This is a critical question because above an altitude of 2500-3000 feet, usually the internet connectivity is very weak, and we can't fly based on an application that requires online connectivity.

I am not very familiar with mobile apps infrastructure, but I'm afraid that in case you want to support mobile and use the application for flying, it should be a native app - maybe written in Kotlin for some kind of cross-platform support.

An alternative approach can be starting with a Planning Tool rather than a navigation tool, and after having a good planning tool, you can proceed with a native navigation app development.

Personally, I would use this app even in case it doesn't allow navigation and is used only for planning (As long as it supports an option for exporting a flight plan file that can be imported into SkyDemon or ForeFlight).

[meirtolpin11]

Based on other issues that are being talked about involving flight schools and airplane sales, I really think that the overall direction is more toward planning, but on the other hand, there are already plenty of applications for planning and managing (for example, https://www.flylog.io/), but they are not convenient at all - I don't know anyone who actually uses them for testing.

CaptainVFR should offer something that the other tools are not offering. Maybe keeping it open-source can be that one "special offering" that it will have, but maybe it's not enough.

If you want to make pilots shift from planning in SkyDemon/ForeFlight to planning in CaptainVFR, you should make sure that CaptainVFR planning capabilities are indeed better. And in case it's not good enough for navigation, it should allow seamless integration with the navigation tools.

P.S.

For me, the game changer is the ability to plan a trip that consists of multiple flight plans that I can see in front of me on the map - this is something that is not possible in either SkyDemon or ForeFlight. In addition, I really like that I can do it online from any platform. So I am already a satisfied planning user, and the only thing that I am missing is easy integration.

[vzeman]

@meirtolpin11 easy integration to which system do you need? maybe we can add it if you have in mind something specific.

e.g. we plan to implement hardware devices supported by safesky together with situation awareness map layer

thx for the support.