Flying

6The flight screen

A guided tour of everything on the screen while you fly: the map, the tiles, the status chips, the banners and the flight menu.

Works offline

What is on the screen#

The flight screen is built from your layout, so no two pilots see the same thing. What is always there is the map area, the tiles you placed around it, a record button, a recenter button and a banner area where the app talks to you.

Fig. 6.1A flight in progress on a competition layout: task map with airspace on the left, flight radar and side view on the right, tiles down the edge.
Map area
Your position, track, task, airspace and everything else drawn geographically. Its size and position come from your layout.
Tiles
The numbers. Each one shows a single metric. See Tiles and the map area.
Record button
Shows the recording state and opens the flight menu.
Recenter button
Recenter on my position after you have panned the map.
Banner area
Where alerts, task events and guidance appear. You choose where it sits and how big it is.
Status chips
Small indicators for GPS, live tracking, buddies and an external vario.

Status chips#

The chips are the app telling you what is working. They only appear when they are relevant, so a pilot who does not use live tracking never sees its chip.

Chip What it tells you
GPS The quality of your position fix. This is the one to watch before you launch.
Live tracking That positions are being published, and whether the last send succeeded.
Buddies That the buddy overlay is on and how many pilots are being shown.
External vario That a Bluetooth vario is connected and feeding data.

Caution

Before you launch, wait for a good GPS fix. Starting a flight on a poor fix produces a ragged first minute of track and a wrong takeoff altitude.

The flight menu#

Tapping the record button opens the flight menu. This is the one place you change things mid air without leaving the flight.

Fig. 6.2The flight menu during a task flight. Active toggles are highlighted, and END FLIGHT sits right at the top.
Header
The name of the layout you are flying and the glider you selected, so you always know which page you are on.
END FLIGHT
At the top of the sheet. Ends the flight, after a confirmation.
Base map
Switch between map styles. This section only appears when you have more than one style enabled in Maps.
Layers
Airspaces, Weather Data, Thermal maps and the Thermal Assistant. Enabled layers are highlighted.
Actions
Vario sound, Live tracking, Buddies, Touch gestures, the map orientation and Switch layout. Toggles that are on are highlighted the same way.

Note

When you are flying a task with live tracking on, the menu also carries the level message buttons and the pilot status buttons. See Live tracking and buddies.

Banners and what they mean#

The banner area is how the app gets your attention without you having to read tiles. Banners come in two families: information about your task or plan, and warnings about airspace and obstacles.

Banner Meaning
Waiting for takeoff Recording has started but the app has not detected a takeoff yet.
Window open The task start window has opened.
Start in 30 seconds / Start in 1 minute / Start in n minutes Countdown to the next start gate.
Start gate open A start gate is open right now.
Start taken The app has recorded your start.
Task started You are on the task clock.
<name> reached You have made a turnpoint.
Goal reached! You have crossed into goal.
Task finished Your task is complete.
Task window closed The window for starting has closed.
Task stopped The organizer stopped the task. Follow the rules for stopped tasks and land safely.
Task reopened by the organizer A stopped task has been reopened.

Important

Task stopped is a safety message, not a scoring message. When you see it, the priority is to land safely under the rules for stopped tasks in that competition.

Tip

Banner position and size are part of the layout. If you find yourself missing them, make the banner larger in the layout editor, or move it away from where your risers sit in your field of view.

Airspace and obstacle alerts#

When you approach a live airspace or a mapped obstacle, the app raises an alert banner and, if you enabled sound, an alarm. The banner tells you how close you are, both horizontally and vertically, and says INSIDE once you are in it.

Fig. 6.3An airspace alert. The distances update live as you fly.
250 m horiz
Horizontal distance to the boundary.
150 m up or 150 m down
Vertical distance to the floor or the ceiling.
INSIDE horizontally
You are inside the lateral boundary but still clear vertically.
INSIDE vertically
You are in the height band but still clear laterally.
INSIDE
You are in the airspace.

Tapping the alert offers to silence it. The app asks Disable this airspace alert? and can mute it for one hour, confirming with Airspace alert disabled for 1 hour. Obstacles behave the same way.

Caution

Muting an alert only silences the app. It does not change where the airspace is. Use it for a piece of airspace you have consciously decided to fly beside, not for one you are trying to ignore.

For the full picture of what is around you, open the visible airspaces sheet described in Airspaces.

Panning, zooming and gestures#

By default you can pan and zoom the flight map with your fingers. After panning, the Recenter on my position button brings you back.

Touch gestures
On or off Default: On
Whether the flight map responds to pan and pinch. Buttons and remote controls still work when it is off. Turn it off if you fly with the phone somewhere it gets brushed, or if you keep losing your view by accident. Toggle it in the flight menu without leaving the flight.

Tip

With gestures off, use zoom and pan tiles or a remote control instead. That is the usual competition setup: nothing moves unless you meant it to.

Photos and video#

The Capture action in the flight menu, or a capture tile on your layout, takes a Photo or a Video without leaving the flight.

  1. Open the flight menu, or press your capture tile.
  2. Choose Photo or Video.
  3. The result is saved and confirmed with Saved to gallery.

Note

Photos taken this way can be attached when you upload the flight. See Uploading and sharing flights.