Foreflight vertical speed calculation

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
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west Texas
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Dave Taylor
Did FF ever get a VS readout? Maybe I missed it. If not, seems like an easy calculation. My AnywhereMap had that, and even a 'glideslope', and this was a decade ago. Could it be liability why they don't? I am talking about descent from altitude, not approaches.
Yes it's easy enough for me to do myself; in fact I managed to get down all these years, somehow. Just seemed like a very simple add-on which I did not see.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Did FF ever get a VS readout? Maybe I missed it. If not, seems like an easy calculation. My AnywhereMap had that, and even a 'glideslope', and this was a decade ago. Could it be liability why they don't? I am talking about descent from altitude, not approaches.
Yes it's easy enough for me to do myself; in fact I managed to get down all these years, somehow. Just seemed like a very simple add-on which I did not see.
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If it does, it's probably in their pro version :goofy:
 
Yeah if you have SV there is a VS indicator to the right of the speed tape.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Did FF ever get a VS readout? Maybe I missed it. If not, seems like an easy calculation. My AnywhereMap had that, and even a 'glideslope', and this was a decade ago. Could it be liability why they don't? I am talking about descent from altitude, not approaches.
Yes it's easy enough for me to do myself; in fact I managed to get down all these years, somehow. Just seemed like a very simple add-on which I did not see.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I just have to ask -- you know you can customize the gauges that display at the bottom of the map, right? Where it has groundspeed, track, etc, you can tap and hold (I think) to add a bunch of other options like GPS altitude, VS, and so forth.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I am talking about descent from altitude, not approaches.
Click to expand...
Looks like he's talking about a VNAV function like on the G530, where you set some parameters and it will tell you when to descend. If that's what you're talking about, then no, FF doesn't have it. As others posted, yes, it has a current VS readout and it's been there for years.
 
dukeblue219 said:
Sorry, I just have to ask -- you know you can customize the gauges that display at the bottom of the map, right? Where it has groundspeed, track, etc, you can tap and hold (I think) to add a bunch of other options like GPS altitude, VS, and so forth.
Click to expand...

And I was not clear; sorry from me!
I do see the 'current' VS readout you mention.

What I am asking about is, will it show 'what rate of descent will get me to the airport from here', or 'when should I start down, to get 1000fpm descent all the way to the airport'?
This is what AWM used to do.
Thanks.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
And I was not clear; sorry from me!
I do see the 'current' VS readout you mention.

What I am asking about is, will it show 'what rate of descent will get me to the airport from here', or 'when should I start down, to get 1000fpm descent all the way to the airport'?
This is what AWM used to do.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

In that case, no I don't believe they have added that even though a lot of people have asked over the years. Recently they added climb and descent performance in the aircraft profile to help planning the optimum cruising altitude, fuel consumption, etc, but you can't really build a three-dimensional flight plan.
 
dukeblue219 said:
In that case, no I don't believe they have added that even though a lot of people have asked over the years. Recently they added climb and descent performance in the aircraft profile to help planning the optimum cruising altitude, fuel consumption, etc, but you can't really build a three-dimensional flight plan.
Click to expand...

Probably one of the more frequent feature requests.
 
Have they ever indicated a reason for their reluctance?
Does their competitor provide it?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Have they ever indicated a reason for their reluctance?

Does their competitor provide it?
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The competition provides it, they don't. I've requested it multiple times (as have others). For some reason they just say "we'll consider it" and that's about it. Since I'm guessing the programming _might_ take them a few hours or days, the only reasons I see why they haven't done it are.

1. They are out of touch with customer needs.
2. They have liability concerns

Same thing for audio terrain alerts. I suspect one of the same two reasons. Adding audio alerts to terrain might just save someone's life one day too.
 
What other audio alerts does FF have? I can only think of entering runways.
 
Ive only heard the rwy audio alerts.

If you have your device (ipad) plugged into the headset (mine; A20 with port on control box) or the audio panel music input, will you hear the audio alerts in the headsets?
 
NoHeat said:
What other audio alerts does FF have? I can only think of entering runways.
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Yep, that's it. I would like to see terrain alerts and maybe even other, programmable ones. Terrain is critical though.
 
No VNAV planning, but at 1000 FPM or 500 FPM it's easy to use the Cumulative ETE (Estimated Time Enroute) to figure out when to descend. I'm sure that's how you're doing it now, Dave.

Marfa is at 4849 MSL, call the traffic pattern altitude 6000' to make the math easy. Descending from 15000'? 9000 feet to lose means start your descent when ETE reaches 9 minutes if you want a 1000 FPM descent, 18 minutes out for a 500 FPM descent.
 
dukeblue219 said:
...you know you can customize the gauges that display at the bottom of the map, right?.
Click to expand...

So, how does one put the guages back at the bottom? I have the basic ff with only external gps. The guages take up to much space on the mini.
 
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