Dynon software team,
I have a few suggestions for new software features that I'd offer for your consideration. These are things that I've been consistently thinking about over the past couple years of flying my HDX.
1) Automatic baro setting when the skyview is power on.
- Each flight I have to either tune the ATIS for a baro setting, or (more commonly) adjust the baro until fie;ld elevation is set as current (very common because getting nearby ATIS is difficult while on the ground). It would be very helpful to automatically adjust the baro setting so that the current elevation matches what is in the terain database. This could be cross checked agains an ADSB broadcast, or have a message pop up asking the user to confirm setting the baro, or something, but it would eliminate a manual task that happens on every flight.
2) Add on-screen touch shortcut to set fuel level.
- In order to set fuel level manually the user must press the "menu" button, then press "engine tools", then "fuel". It would be helpful to be able to press the touch screen over the fuel level indication and have that take you directly to the "fuel menu". The user would then adjust fuel level and acknowledge as usual, but this would save navigating thru 3 layers of menus to get there.
3) Add the ability to turn on/off the bottom information bar in conjuction with a split screen configuration.
- Currently the bottom bar is either on or off, despite how the screen is configured. However, for users like me that have only one screen, we often configure the screen with flight instruments on the left and engine insturments on the right. Then, at some point after reaching cruise altitude, when switch the configuration to replace the engine display with the map display (e.g we're ready to start navigating and no longer need as much attention focused on the engine). During the navigation mode it would be very helpful to automatically turn on the bottom bar so that we can display a portion of the engine parameters there (it's a bit small to fit them all in, but very useful especially in cruise flight). To do this currently, the user must first display the map, then go back in and activate the bottom bar. This adds additional menu presses each flight as you reconfigure from takeoff (engine displayed on right, no bottom bar), to cruise (map on right, engine on bottom), and back to landing (engine on right, no bottom bar). Making this an automatic option would reduce all this button pressing to a simple toggle.
4) Reduce the occurrence of the audible "Message" warning when doing aerobatics.
- Each time the plane goes upside down the audible warning "Message" is played. However, by the time the manuever is completed the system has reset itself (I'm guessing it's the ADAHRS) and the condition has cleared. In practice, this trains the pilot performing aerobatics to automatically disregard any audible "Message" warning the system generates because they happen so often and don't mean anything. A better approach would be to perhaps slow down the generation of the message in the first place (e.g. create a higher threshold for alerting) so as to not generate as many false positives.
5) Add warning message pop-ups on screen when maintenance intervals have been exceeded.
- Currently the user must navigate to the maintenance interval timer each flight in order to assess whether any item has been exceeded (it does show in red text to help spot it easily). It would be helpful to give the user the option of displaying a warning on the main home screen (maybe with an audible as well?). This warning would be acknowledged and dismissed like any other, but it would actively call attention to the interval at the beginning of the flight.
Thank you for your continued support!
Jeff Shultz
I have a few suggestions for new software features that I'd offer for your consideration. These are things that I've been consistently thinking about over the past couple years of flying my HDX.
1) Automatic baro setting when the skyview is power on.
- Each flight I have to either tune the ATIS for a baro setting, or (more commonly) adjust the baro until fie;ld elevation is set as current (very common because getting nearby ATIS is difficult while on the ground). It would be very helpful to automatically adjust the baro setting so that the current elevation matches what is in the terain database. This could be cross checked agains an ADSB broadcast, or have a message pop up asking the user to confirm setting the baro, or something, but it would eliminate a manual task that happens on every flight.
2) Add on-screen touch shortcut to set fuel level.
- In order to set fuel level manually the user must press the "menu" button, then press "engine tools", then "fuel". It would be helpful to be able to press the touch screen over the fuel level indication and have that take you directly to the "fuel menu". The user would then adjust fuel level and acknowledge as usual, but this would save navigating thru 3 layers of menus to get there.
3) Add the ability to turn on/off the bottom information bar in conjuction with a split screen configuration.
- Currently the bottom bar is either on or off, despite how the screen is configured. However, for users like me that have only one screen, we often configure the screen with flight instruments on the left and engine insturments on the right. Then, at some point after reaching cruise altitude, when switch the configuration to replace the engine display with the map display (e.g we're ready to start navigating and no longer need as much attention focused on the engine). During the navigation mode it would be very helpful to automatically turn on the bottom bar so that we can display a portion of the engine parameters there (it's a bit small to fit them all in, but very useful especially in cruise flight). To do this currently, the user must first display the map, then go back in and activate the bottom bar. This adds additional menu presses each flight as you reconfigure from takeoff (engine displayed on right, no bottom bar), to cruise (map on right, engine on bottom), and back to landing (engine on right, no bottom bar). Making this an automatic option would reduce all this button pressing to a simple toggle.
4) Reduce the occurrence of the audible "Message" warning when doing aerobatics.
- Each time the plane goes upside down the audible warning "Message" is played. However, by the time the manuever is completed the system has reset itself (I'm guessing it's the ADAHRS) and the condition has cleared. In practice, this trains the pilot performing aerobatics to automatically disregard any audible "Message" warning the system generates because they happen so often and don't mean anything. A better approach would be to perhaps slow down the generation of the message in the first place (e.g. create a higher threshold for alerting) so as to not generate as many false positives.
5) Add warning message pop-ups on screen when maintenance intervals have been exceeded.
- Currently the user must navigate to the maintenance interval timer each flight in order to assess whether any item has been exceeded (it does show in red text to help spot it easily). It would be helpful to give the user the option of displaying a warning on the main home screen (maybe with an audible as well?). This warning would be acknowledged and dismissed like any other, but it would actively call attention to the interval at the beginning of the flight.
Thank you for your continued support!
Jeff Shultz