CloudAhoy

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tonyholland00

Pre-Flight
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Tony Holland
Hello, I must say I used a new app for the Iphone that my flight instructor was pumped about last night in my lesson called CloudAhoy. It is a free app that tracks you flight and shows all of the data in Google earth.

I found is so interesting and a real game changer for debriefing after a flight or training flight.

I am sorry if I am late to the game and everyone else knows about this app already.

More info about it at www.cloudahoy.com

Unfortunately it looks to be only on the Iphone as of right now.
 
I've used MotionX GPS Lite to do this:
 

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Cool, their FAQ says it can run simultaneously with ForeFlight, in the background... I'll have to give it a try.
 
At work we use Spider Tracks along with flight following but this will be pretty cool for me to use for my information. Thanks for the info.
 
Just downloaded my tracks and will try it on Saturday (not my plane but should be cool).

Kimberly
 
I've been using it for a few months now during my Instrument training. It is great for seeing what you did while you had the foggles on. It, indeed, does run in the background while Foreflight is running. I have had a couple of occasions where both of them have crashed so CloudAhoy stops running. It does run on the iPad. Just add it to your checklist before you take off, taxi or whatever you're preference is. If you forget to stop it after you land and shutdown it will stop itself at some point. Here is a link to my flight up to Charlotte before Christmas.

http://cloudahoy.com/cgi-bin/fltShare.cgi?share=18mADwuJnXkcFc8Gpm9fDh
 
Another big thumbs-up for Cloudahoy. Launching this app is now part of my standard pre-flight checklist.
 
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Downloaded this after reading this thread, and can't wait to try it out! Looks pretty cool. Be advised, however, that it won't work on later versions of Firefox on the Mac. I think the latest Mac version of Firefox on which it will run is 3.0 (current release is 9). It does run fine on Chrome or Safari, and on all PC versions of Firefox. Since I use Firefox 9 as my primary browser on the Mac platform, this is an annoyance, but not a huge deal.
 
Another happy user of CloudAhoy. Runs in background with WingX no problem. Quite good at decoding different stages of flight. Sometimes it's cool to see how good your hold was:)
 
I have recently been using it and love it - really gives a good picture of your flight path
 
Ran across this site. Pretty awesome, but I wish there was Android support. I refuse to buy iPhone, and would love some Android functionality.
 
Just using it now, and I like it!



6951140047_59e19284f3_b.jpg
 
Broke down and bought a bluetooth GPS for my iPad. Thinking I would need it for ForeFlight anyway. Gave CloudAhoy a shot and WOW. It's amazing.

For example, below is some of my pattern work and Class C landings.
http://cloudahoy.com/cgi-bin/fltShare.cgi?share=1uX8pvAbOy4bsUjRIir4i

Love it. Showed it to one of the guys in flight school, he's really looking forward to using it with students. As for me, going to run this during my checkride!
 
Meanee said:
Broke down and bought a bluetooth GPS for my iPad. Thinking I would need it for ForeFlight anyway. Gave CloudAhoy a shot and WOW. It's amazing.

For example, below is some of my pattern work and Class C landings.
http://cloudahoy.com/cgi-bin/fltShare.cgi?share=1uX8pvAbOy4bsUjRIir4i

Love it. Showed it to one of the guys in flight school, he's really looking forward to using it with students. As for me, going to run this during my checkride!
Click to expand...

WOW! Followed your link and did the playback with the cockpit view,.. 4x speed,... VERY NEAT! Watching you land and taxi-off is cool. Amazing at what we can do now with our phone / ipad.....
 
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I sent CloudAhoy support an email asking if regular igc files could be uploaded and not rely on the iPhone or iPad app to log and upload the gps data file.

I have not heard back yet, that was two days ago. Granted it was a weekend, but now all day Monday. Any ideas how long it takes tech support to answer?
 
BillTIZ said:
I sent CloudAhoy support an email asking if regular igc files could be uploaded and not rely on the iPhone or iPad app to log and upload the gps data file.

I have not heard back yet, that was two days ago. Granted it was a weekend, but now all day Monday. Any ideas how long it takes tech support to answer?
Click to expand...

Usually within a couple of days. Tech support is one guy, the developer. Looks like he's been pretty busy adding features in the analysis portion of the data.

http://excoboard.com/CloudAhoy link to his forum. You should be able to register there or at least see what Chuck is up to.
 
This app looks pretty cool. Just wondering where you guys mount your iphone so it "see's" the sky. I don't want my phone getting loose and flying around when I do steep turns, stalls, bouncy landings, etc..... :D
 
ainokea said:
This app looks pretty cool. Just wondering where you guys mount your iphone so it "see's" the sky. I don't want my phone getting loose and flying around when I do steep turns, stalls, bouncy landings, etc..... :D
Click to expand...

Duct tape it to the top of the engine cowling.
 
Well, they really made a mistake with this one, at least for those of us who are low-budget fliers. They are going to start charging for it in December and it's a really steep cost. $70 a year, minus a few discounts. For $99 a year I get a full glass cockpit, all the USA charts updated, flight planning and DUATS from Voyager. The point is that the cost/benefit is way out of whack for CloudAhoy. For the majority of pilots who struggle to fly less than 50 hours a year, it's not worth $2 or $3 a flight to get something that a GPS gives you for free.

It was a wonderful product. They really need to just charge upfront for it, something like $19.99 for lifetime, and save themselves all the record keeping of subscriptions. I notice that other GPS trackers go for ten bucks on the iTunes store.

Want to kill General Aviation? Pretend that every pilot is a member of the one percent. And charge accordingly.
 
skyking3286 said:
Well, they really made a mistake with this one, at least for those of us who are low-budget fliers. They are going to start charging for it in December and it's a really steep cost. $70 a year, minus a few discounts. For $99 a year I get a full glass cockpit, all the USA charts updated, flight planning and DUATS from Voyager. The point is that the cost/benefit is way out of whack for CloudAhoy. For the majority of pilots who struggle to fly less than 50 hours a year, it's not worth $2 or $3 a flight to get something that a GPS gives you for free.

It was a wonderful product. They really need to just charge upfront for it, something like $19.99 for lifetime, and save themselves all the record keeping of subscriptions. I notice that other GPS trackers go for ten bucks on the iTunes store.

Want to kill General Aviation? Pretend that every pilot is a member of the one percent. And charge accordingly.
Click to expand...
Agreed, this is a cool app, it's $45/yr if purchased before May 2014, $70 after. Way too much. He/they could have made a bundle just charging up-front.
Bummer to see this...
 
I've downloaded...will definitely be using it. I'm curious if it will use my Stratus GPS? On the homescreen it seems to suggest it can pick up another GPS but not sure if that's for iPad's with no internal GPS and someone is using something else that the iOS sees as a GPS (not sure with the iPad it sees the Stratus as a GPS, only FF can...).

Anyway, thanks for sharing - I'll definitely be using this and sharing with my passengers that want to relive the flight. :)
 
Aeric said:
Agreed, this is a cool app, it's $45/yr if purchased before May 2014, $70 after. Way too much. He/they could have made a bundle just charging up-front.
Bummer to see this...
Click to expand...
The way I read it it's only $45 for the first year, introductory (i.e. come-on) pricing.

I replied to the email and told them basically the same thing you said. I added that I'm a ForeFlight Pro subscriber so not averse to paying a subscription fee for a great product. The fee just has to match the value, and sadly, $70 is out of the ball park.
 
Clarification: app, and recording flight tracks, is free. Analyzing/playing them back on the web is what the subscription gets you. You could record all you want, then do a three month subscription at the end of the year to review all your flights for the year.
 
skyking3286 said:
Want to kill General Aviation? Pretend that every pilot is a member of the one percent. And charge accordingly.
Click to expand...

I hardly doubt it will kill GA, but I do doubt it's a good business model for him.

Fact it, if he raised it to anything above $.99 someone would complain.

The > $20 a year threshold is well beyond what the average 20hr/yr pilot is willing to pay. I image the bulk of users are VFR playing around, or training. As someone who flies to go places, it's interesting, but most of the time I forget I even have it, let alone use it. If it was $10/yr, I would keep it just for giggles.

So while I think they'll get some business from folks actively training, I doubt there'll be a ton of renewals.

People pay $75-150/yr for Foreflight because it gives them something they need and saves money from using paper charts. This app doesn't really give them anything they operationally need.

All it takes is for ForeFlight to roll out breadcrumbs in their next release and this product is toast, from a financial perspective.

Come to think of it, maybe that's what's about to happen...
 
I have recently downloaded and used this app. This is great for visual reference. ADDITIONALLY, I also use a pretty cool journal to debrief my flights and have found it very useful.
www.pilotjournalnotebook.com
Its a great way to make notes about good and bad situations in your flying, especially as a student.
 
From the developer, whom I respect even if this is a poor decision for me:

"You will have full debrief capabilities for new flights from now well into 2014 (expiring 35 days from your first flight after 12/2/2013, plus bonus days). You will still be able to debrief your old flights after the expiration. Even after the expiration, you would be able to log flights and buy a subscription if/when you would want to debrief them."

Even at the lowest price, it's not worth it for me. It's still just an iPhone app...it was good while it lasted. Oh well.

 
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Chuck sent me another reply last night, pointing me to their website which he says has more accurate info. The official word is $45 annually for the debriefing capability -- no guarantees beyond the first year of course, and according to Chuck the $70 will be for a premium product.

And Troy is correct -- I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
 
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Glad he offered it for so long for free. No skin off my nose if the servers are costing him money and he now wants to make a go of making it a business.

It'll get deleted off my iPhone though.

I have a $19 cheap Chinese GPS that logs tracks to internal memory and piles of other free tools to extract it if I need to see where I went because I forgot the next day. And the " social " aspect of looking at someone else's flight track or mine isn't much of a draw for me if I have to pay for it.

We can sit around at the airport and tell each other where we went flying. That'll be good enough.
 
Wish I had this on my recent round trip from Daytona Beach to Phoenix!
 
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