SkyDemon Plan Overview

SkyDemon Plan runs on any Windows PC and helps you plan your route, calculate performance, prepare for flight and later analyse the results. Internet connectivity is required for automatic retrieval of NOTAMs, TAFs and METARs.

How it Works

SkyDemon charts are the clearest of their kind, and are designed to present aeronautical data, your planned route, enroute weather and NOTAM in a way that makes the software a pleasure to use. You will save countless hours of planning time because the information you need is all gathered together in one place.

Planning a route is as simple as clicking on consecutive waypoints until the route is finished. It can then be altered by dragging any part of it to create doglegs around features or to experiment with different routings. Our charts are available for most of Europe and North America, and include everything you need to plan safe journeys. You can also create and share an unlimited number of your own waypoints and aircraft profiles.

While planning a route it is easy to see from both the main map and enroute features view whether there are any conflictions with designated airspace, ground-based obstructions or other hazards. The enroute features view is a side-on projection of your route. It makes it clear whether the route passes close to terrain or obstructions and whether it goes under, through or over the top of airspace. All ground-based features and reporting points you will pass close by are depicted.

As a route is planned, NOTAM are fetched automatically and plotted on the maps, making it easy to tell which are likely to affect the flight. Alongside the mapping, a dedicated narrow route briefing contains all the NOTAM you need to read. Weather information, both observed and forecast, is automatically downloaded for airfields near the route and is plotted on the maps and in detail elsewhere. This makes it easy to see at a glance if bad weather is likely to affect the flight.

Forecast winds aloft are then entered by the user and heading and groundspeed calculations are performed and displayed in the route plan together with automatically-calculated minimum safe altitudes for each leg.

About SkyDemon Charts

Our charts are adaptive, which means they can change themselves in order to present only information that is relevant to you. For instance, if you are planning a route at 3000ft there is no need to be looking at airspace that starts at 4000ft, so SkyDemon automatically hides it.

Compared to many systems, which rely on a digitised version of a static chart meant for printing, SkyDemon Charts are able to hold much more data and yet show a less cluttered map. Much of the chart information appears on request, appearing in bubbles above the map when you move the mouse over certain features. In this way, details such as the vertical boundaries and activity periods of airspace, contact frequencies for airfields, runways and much more are easily accessible.

Our charts can even take on the appearance of specific paper charts that the user may be familiar with, by using similar colours and line styles to depict map features terrain elevation. The user can currently choose between three different styles of chart, with more coming soon.

Performance Calculations

As a route is plotted, the required fuel is constantly updated in the fuel planning window. The aircraft library is used to define the parameters for your aircraft such as the type of fuel it uses, burn rates and maximum levels. Thus a complete fuel plan is always just a glance away. The planned fuel level can be set anywhere between the minimum required (for the route and diversion) and the maximum that can be carried by the selected aircraft.

Weight and balance calculations are performed as the planned fuel quantity is changed. Fuel is entered into the weight and balance sheet automatically and all other loading points such as pilot and passenger weight can be specified for each plan. The centre of gravity envelope graph depicts takeoff and landing weight and also full-fuel and empty-fuel weight, making it easy to see whether the proposed configuration is acceptable for flight.

Next: Briefing Features