Map / Weather Questions

[NoahF]

Hello, I just started to play around with mapping and weather. Couple questions:

1. Lets say I am going on a 750 mile trip and want to check weather enroute and especially at my destination. How can I do this? I cannot seem to pan "off the screen" such that my airplane location is not shown. And I can only zoom out to like 4 or 5 hundred miles - not enough to see my destination, and even if I could zoom out that far, I couldn't see my destination airport at that scale. It would be good if I could zoom way out, then pan to my destination, and zoom back in to check METARs and TAFs, etc. I can do this on the Garmin X96 series but AFS does not seem to support this functionality. Am I missing something?

2. Some large red rings (signifying TFRs I think) showed up near my home airport. When I pan over to them, I get no information about them - such as time of effectivity, ceiling, radius, or type of TFR (fire, VIP, Public Event, etc.) I can do this on the Garmin X96 series but AFS does not seem to support this functionality. Am I missing something?

3. NEXRAD imagery is always stationary. Is there a looping option to put it in motion? My recollection is that I can do this on the Garmin X96 series but AFS does not seem to support this functionality. Am I missing something?

4. If I am on a trip and want to check the TAF at some airport I'm not familiar with, my recollection is that the Garmin X96 series will show you the TAF for the nearest reporting airport, if the facility chosen does not report TAFs. In my playing around with the AFS, you need to KNOW which airport to select to get a TAF. If you guess wrong you are out of luck and need to keep searching for the reporting airport. Again, am I missing something?

[lcbowen]

Great questions. Looking forward to the discussion.

[Trevor Conroy]

Hi Noah,

At this time we do not support panning of the map beyond the screen shown, showing TFR information (other than the red ring), animated NEXRAD, or showing the nearest TAF. However, all of those items are on our short list and our software engineers are working on developing them.

[NoahF]

Thanks for the response Trevor. Hopefully this functionality will get working soon.

[Rob Hickman]

1. Lets say I am going on a 750 mile trip and want to check weather enroute and especially at my destination. How can I do this? I cannot seem to pan "off the screen" such that my airplane location is not shown. And I can only zoom out to like 4 or 5 hundred miles - not enough to see my destination, and even if I could zoom out that far, I couldn't see my destination airport at that scale. It would be good if I could zoom way out, then pan to my destination, and zoom back in to check METARs and TAFs, etc. I can do this on the Garmin X96 series but AFS does not seem to support this functionality. Am I missing something?

The latest software for the new "s" CPU systems let you zoom out 678 miles. If you press the D-> buttom it will bring up your destination airport info and you will have METARS and TAF buttons. The joystick is working in the latest software release for airport selection and we are close to having it pan off the screen.

2. Some large red rings (signifying TFRs I think) showed up near my home airport. When I pan over to them, I get no information about them - such as time of effectivity, ceiling, radius, or type of TFR (fire, VIP, Public Event, etc.) I can do this on the Garmin X96 series but AFS does not seem to support this functionality. Am I missing something?
As long as you are zoomed in it will show the vertical bounderies and a label "AIRSHOW" or "FIRE" as long as it is in the XM data.

3. NEXRAD imagery is always stationary. Is there a looping option to put it in motion? My recollection is that I can do this on the Garmin X96 series but AFS does not seem to support this functionality. Am I missing something?

Currently we do not have looping, it is on the list of things to do.

4. If I am on a trip and want to check the TAF at some airport I'm not familiar with, my recollection is that the Garmin X96 series will show you the TAF for the nearest reporting airport, if the facility chosen does not report TAFs. In my playing around with the AFS, you need to KNOW which airport to select to get a TAF. If you guess wrong you are out of luck and need to keep searching for the reporting airport. Again, am I missing something?

Airports with current METAR data are displayed with a colored flag, you can pan over to them and get the METAR or TAF data for them. We are currently working on the zoom and declutter option that will let you see the closest TAF data. We have 4 software engineers working on it…

Nick is currently working on:

1. Lightning display
2. Winds Aloft
3. XM Music and channel selection
4. Nearest Weather data

Dave English is working on the Map panning and airspace or TFR selection.
Dave Case is almost finished with new improved water data for SV.
Ken is finishing up Vertical Power and HITS.
Rob Hickman