DC SFRA

[dynonsupport]

Your best contact is on the forum. This is a bit out of normal technical support, and some of us engineers try to help out on the forum when we can. At the same time, we need to get stuff done so can't have our phones ringing all day. I hope that works for you.

First, here's SkyView without ADS-B. As far as I can tell, the SFRA and FRZ are both depicted. Again, they are both "unknown" airspace types so all we can do is make them the same color.

This is exactly what you will see with ADS-B but TFR's turned off.

Shortly I'll post a pic of the DC area with TFR's on and get you a modified file too that reduces shading intensity.

 

[dynonsupport]

Ok, as promised, here are some options. The first is to show what you have today. Sorry, I don't have the DC TFR in my demo, so these are some other TFR's, but it shows the shading.

The attached .DFG's will change only ACTIVE TFR's. Not upcoming, or stadium TFR's. It will do it for ALL TFR's in the country, not just DC.

Original:

 

[dynonsupport]

Medium Fill

This gives you medium fill on TFR's.

 

[dynonsupport]

Light Fill

This gives you light fill on TFRs

 

[dynonsupport]

No Fill

This deletes the fill from the TFRs but also makes the line a bit thicker

 

[RVDan]

Thanks for the multiple shots. It would be my opinion that the TFR Active light version would work the best and I will try that. This is about the same transparency that I use on my Garmin Pilot on the Ipad. I'll let you know next week how this works.

Dan

 

[RVDan]

I spent some time searching the manuals and am not sure how to upload the .dfg file. Can you please elaborate?

 

[dynonsupport]

They load the same as a database file or a sensor file. Just put them on the root of a USB stick, and go into "load files" in setup.

 

[RVDan]

I uploaded the TFR light file and flew today.  Some interesting things happened.  The attached screenshot shows the SFRA, FRZ depiction and some TFR's inside the SFRA.  The SFRA and FRZ are depicted by the red ticked lines, while the TFR's are depicted as lightly shaded, yet quite visible. 

The interesting part is that previous to this upload, the entire SFRA, out to the 60NM limit (30nm airspace + 30nm for the training required area) was depicted as a TFR - filled in red.  That created a huge area of red fill.  Not sure what changed but with this red tick mark depiction not filled it is fine for me.  The light shading to the TFR's still allows the terrain red to be visible inside the TFR as well as the weather reds depicted for heavy precip.

Perhaps the SFRA ticked lines could be a bit heavier but overall thanks for offering a good solution.

Dan 
 

 

[Carl_Froehlich]

I loaded the "TRF_Active_Light.  Here is a screen shot of the DC SFRA.  This is a big improvement over the big red blob.

 

[RVDan]

The attached screen shot is of the DC SFRA which is quite different from the last screen shot  submitted on July 27, right after loading the TFR light file.  You will notice that in this file, the SFRA 60nm limits (I now believe to be the speed limit ring) colored, including the entire SFRA just like a TFR.  This is what I had previously but the TFR light configuration makes it quite acceptable.  However this is counter to the Dynon statement that the SFRA is not a TFR and is "Other " airspace.  I do have ADS-B in and get TFR's otherwise, so is it possible that somehow the 60nm ring shows up in the TFR database?  Why is the SFRA limit (30MN ring) darker?  Even though the TFR light config has fixed the real problem - which was a 60NM red blob that blocked out WX and terrain, it is still confusing to see the SFRA depicted at 60NM rather than 30NM. 

Thanks for all the work you guys put into this but for those of us who fly the boundaries of the SFRA, having a screen that appears to show us inside the SFRA when we are not can lead to confusion regardless of the source.  BTW, my Garmin Pilot Ipad app and 495 do not depict the SFRA as 60NM like htis. 

Dan

 

[RVDan]

I have to love the screen shot capability. If you look at my previous post, 2:00 from the airplane about 8 miles out is P40- Camp David, another shoot first ask questions later area. It is somewhat obscured by the 60NM ring being shaded.

Dan

 

[RVDan]

Hoping to pose a specific question resulting from my July 27 post (with screenshot) and August 21 post (with screenshot). They are of the same airspace, but you will notice that the SFRA is depicted differently between the two. In the July 27 post, the SFRA and FRZ are depicted by the orange ticked boundary, which agrees with the manual for restricted airspace. In the August 21 post, the SFRA is depicted with the orange ticked boundaries, filled with shading like a TFR and the speed restricted zone is shown at 60nm shaded (no orange ticked boundary lines). The FRZ ticked boundaries are barely visible. I have ADS B working for both screen shots.

Why the difference? Incidentally I have had the depiction change between the 2 in the same flight.

What am I missing here?
Dan

 

[dynonsupport]

Your July 27th Screen shot didn't have ALL ADS-B TFR's loaded yet.

The TFR's you see are stadium TFR's. You can turn these off in SkyView's menus if you want. ADS-B doesn't send all TFR's at the same time, so it's possible to have some TFR's but not all if you are looking at the screen as they are still downloading. This is why your screenshot was missing all the FRZ and SFRA TFRs from ADS-B. The orange ticked lines are in the SkyView internal database and don't need ADS-B data to show at all.

What you saw on the 21st was with all the TFRs loaded. The interior one is darker because the fill colors are additive. So the 60 mile speed ring is shaded lightly, but then the FRZ is on top of it and that doubles the shading intensity.

We can't turn off just the speed ring. It's sent to us as a TFR from the FAA, and we can't distinguish it from any other TFR. Your 496 or Garmin pilot don't show it because they aren't getting ADS-B data.

Your best option may be the "no fill" TFR file I posted last month in post #24. This will just show the outside ring of everything like normal airspaces do. Or you can turn off ALL TFR's, and just see the data from the database, like I showed in post #20.

 

[RVDan]

Thanks for the response and it does clear this up for me. It is interesting that on the 27th shot, I had been flying in the local area for over 30 minutes and the ADS B ground station is at Frederick airport- so I was definitely within range for the entire time. It does make sense though.

I am using the TFR light and it works fine for me. I was just wondering why the changing depiction.

I also noticed another interesting aspect with regards to the restricted airspace database. Over southern Maryland there is a lot of restricted airspace related to PAX river NAS. Skyview was showing restricted airspace that was not on the sectional. After doing some research discovered it had a floor at 25000 ft so not depicted on sectionals only on high altitude charts.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[dynonsupport]

You can turn off airspace that has floors above a user specified altitude in SKyView if you wish.

 

[RVDan]

Didn't know that- that is exactly the feature I was thinking would help. Dynon rules!!

 

[RV711AC]

I loaded the TFR active file today and flew half way around the SFRA to the south. Problem solved no question about the boundary and the red overlay over the 60nm ring was gone.
I love my Skyview and ADSB weather.

 

[dmchristenson]

I loaded the active_tfr_none.dfg file to help improve the visibility of the underlying map. This is a big improvement from the original red blob shwon below. The initial screenshot after loading the dfg is what I was hoping for, but after about 20 minutes of flying, the SFRA filled in with yellow, as shown in the last screenshot. I believe that this is coming from the ADS-B. Is there anyway to decrease or eliminated this infill without completely turning off the TFR's. It is still an improvement over the original, but still not what I was hoping for.

 

[dynonsupport]

Yellow means "upcoming TFR". You can turn these off right in the MAP ITEMS menu, and you will still see currently active TFR's.

Since nobody has reported the SFRA as a Upcoming TFR before, either there really is some new, upcoming TFR in the area, or the FAA changed the SFRA to be broadcast as both active and upcoming.

If you put your cursor on that airspace you can get the TFR # and look it up.