Hi All,
I'm a newbie here but not to aviation. I have a SEL-PPL (since 1960) with an Instrument rating and I fly a Piper Dakota P28-236. I've been using WingX for about six years now and have loved it. I use it with a SkyRadar Dual Band ADS-b receiver. A few weeks ago WingX moved from Version 8.8.1.5 to the newest Version 9.0.1.1. When I upgraded, first thing I noticed was that the map land color changed and then all the off-shore coastlines got fuzzy. Same for all the lakes and rivers. The next thing I noticed was that all my weather and traffic had disappeared! Yeow! Getting through to Hilton's WingX support was impossible (possibly because of Sun-n-Fun). I was having the same problem on both my iPad mini's with iOs 12.2. However, my iPhone7 with iOs 12.2 had not been updated to WingX 9.0.1.1. It was still running the older Version 8.8.1.5 and I was getting the old maps with all the traffic and weather. Finally, after days and days of calling (during SnF) I got through to Carlos in tech support and he verified that WingX was indeed having a software problem and that they were indeed working on it. No... they couldn't re-issue the old software version... and most irritatingly, they haven't taken down the new version that is causing the problem. So, anyone who is late to update their software will soon find they are out of luck! I find this all INEXCUSABLE!!!
So... I decided to get a trial version of ForeFlight and learn a whole new software package. Unfortunately, ForeFlight has its issues with the SkyRadar receiver. ForeFlight won't talk about the competitor's ADS-b receiver. They say... to contact the receiver's manufacturer which I did. I just spoke to Alexy at SkyRadar and he admitted they're not doing much these days with the SkyRadar receiver. They've "moved on." I told him ForeFlight claims they use the GDL-90 protocol standard and SkyRadar also uses the same GDL-90 protocol. Alexy says there, in fact, may be some critical differences. I sent him the ForeFlight set of standards to review. Haven't heard back... yet.
This is an intollerable situation. WingX programmers screwed up an upgrade and can't fix it rapidly. They don't take down the upgrade that's causing everyone problems. The SkyRadar receiver which continues to work well with the old version of WingX won't work with the new version and may, in fact, be incompatible with ForeFlight... and ForeFlight and SkyRadar aren't talking to each other.
Therefore, I decided to upgrade my Garmin GTX-33ES remote receiver (ADS-b OUT ONLY) to a Garmin GTX-345R (In and Out). Not happening so fast. Avionics shops are now quoting a six to eight month backlog of work.
Something is just plain ROTTEN IN DENMARK. It's like watching a whole system going to Hell in a handbasket.
Can anyone add anything helpful?
Best,
Roger Elowitz