IFD 5 Series & IFD 4 Series Touch Screen GPS/NAV/COM - Going home again

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Going home again - route invert

Printed From: Avidyne
Category: Avidyne General
Forum Name: IFD 5 Series & IFD 4 Series Touch Screen GPS/NAV/COM
Forum Description: Topics on Avidyne's IFD 5 Series and IFD 4 Series Touch Screen GPS/NAV/COM
URL: http://forums.avidyne.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1369
Printed Date: 01 May 2024 at 10:41pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Going home again - route invert

Posted By: T67M
Subject: Going home again - route invert
Date Posted: 03 Aug 2017 at 9:46pm

Has anyone found a good way to invert a VFR flight plan/route on the IFD440? If you set up a route from A to B and activate it, all is good. However, after having your cup of coffee at B, you now want to fly the exact same route in reverse to get home again. There are two obvious buttons available - "Copy" and "Invert". Copy does just what it says, whilst "Invert" actually does "Copy and Invert". OK, this works, sort of, but each time someone does "Invert" they end up with yet another copy of the route. We're finding that our IFD route list is rapidly becoming un-navigable due to multiple copies of each route, half in each direction.

Whilst I understand that IFR pilots are used to the poor user interface design found in many early panel mount navigators which only have "Copy" and "Copy and Invert" functions, however users of modern tablet-based VFR navigators (e.g. SkyDemon) have got used to the "Invert" buttons just doing that - inverting the route WITHOUT copying it first. Would it be possible to have "Invert only" on a third soft-key?

On a related matter, it is somewhat counter-intuitive that when you're looking at the route details, it is impossible to activate (or invert) the route - to do either of these functions, you have to go back to the route list view. This can result in the wrong route being activated/inverted by accident as the highlight cyan box is actually invisible to some users with certain colour vision deficiencies.

Replies:

Posted By: brou0040
Date Posted: 04 Aug 2017 at 9:57am

I wish the unit was able to recall the flight plan from the last trip before a shutdown. It could either still be in the FPL memory or go to the route tab, hit 'previous' or some obvious name then invert for the way home. It wouldn't need to copy and invert. Many of my trips are unique enough that I don't save a copy since I take a different route each time, but I very often return the way I went. This is how my tablet EFB works and it seems very intuitive.

Making the route each time isn't hard with the BT keyboard, but these little things are conveniences that make it even nicer.