Welcome to the first issue of our AV8OR ACE newsletter.  As you may know, Seattle Avionics Software produces the IFR approach plates, Low Altitude and High Altitude charts used on the ACE.  We're extremely excited about this partnership and want to keep everyone informed about changes and improvements.

 

The rest of this issue concerns a major new version of our Data Manager application that downloads this data for you in the background, a new release of the Bendix/King software that runs on your AV8OR ACE, and a special offer to subscribe to our data update service.

 

If you have questions, concerns or suggestions about how to make this data more useful -- or other types of data you'd like to see -- please contact me.

 

Sincerely,

Steve Podradchik

CEO

 

 

 

In the past, depending on your network connection speed, it might have been difficult to download the approach plates for your AV8OR ACE.  This is mainly because the single file with all 15,000 approach plates/airport diagrams is about 1.3 GB.  Not only is that simply a lot of data to download, especially if you're using a slow WiFi from a hotel room, any brief glitch in the Internet requires a complete re-download from the beginning.  The new version of our Data Manager resolves these issues.  The new Data Manager has the following features:

 

Every 56 days, the FAA updates approximately 2,500 of the 15,000 approach plates and airport diagrams.  Then, in the "in-between" 28 day cycle, they typically update another 500 or so.  The old Data Manager would download a full set of all 15,000 files every 28 days.  The new Data Manager can download just the files that have changed, making the whole process vastly faster.

 

While incremental downloads are extremely helpful, there is a potentially confusing side-effect.  The FAA prints a complete set of all 15,000 plates and diagrams every 28 days.  Every 28 days, for reasons known only to them, they change the date on the side of the plate even if the plate hasn't changed.  The plate does, however, also have another, somewhat cryptic, indication of when it was last changed.  Please see the graphic below.  Put simply, looking at the date on the side has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of the plate.  The FAA digitally publishes information on which plates have changed each month and we use their data to perform the incremental downloads.  We've been doing this for nearly eight years for our Voyager Flight Software application.

 

 

 

The Data Manager defaults to downloading only incremental plates but it can be told to download the full set every 28 days.  This is not recommended because of how long it takes.  Note that if you switch from "Only new and changed items" to "All procedures/diagrams", the Data Manager will not immediately download all the plates;  Rather, it will download the full set when the next 28 day cycle is downloaded.

 

The new system downloads each plate individually rather than as one large file with all the plates.  It also keeps track of where it is in the process.  These allow the system to automatically restart from where it left off if the downloads are interrupted.

 

Each plate is verified as it's downloaded.  If the system has trouble downloading a file or the downloaded file appears to be corrupted, the Data Manager automatically retries the file a few times before giving up and telling you there is a problem.  99% of the time, this retry system gets around the inherent flakiness of the Internet.

 

The Data Manager updates itself when it checks for data updates.  If the machine with the Data Manager is running now, there's a good chance it has already updated itself.  If not, fire up the appropriate computer and double-click the small Data Manager icon in the system tray (lower right corner of the computer screen).  When the Data Manager window appears, click the Download Now button.  The Data Manager should detect the newer version, download it, and install it.