[ACARS] Air Nav 4 - Feedback Invitation

[Mike]

Hi Everyone,

I have provided the following feedback to the Airnav 4 team on the =
limited use I have so far made of the product.  I now invite your =
comments if you so wish but also request that you CC Airnav so they can =
get a handle on user feedback.

Hi,

I am sure that this product was well "beta" tested on a range of =
computers but feel that some user feedback on the released product may =
be warranted given some of the well documented problems with its =
predecessor.  I have held of ordering Airnav 4 based on my experience =
with, and problems encountered with Airnav 3, a summary of my thoughts =
and findings follow:

a.    I own a computer that lives in room with plenty of daylight and =
find the colours chosen for the map do not show up well at all in =
daylight.  In Airnav 3 there was a utility to change the colours but in =
version 4 this seems to have either been missed by the developers or I =
cannot find the tool for changing the colours.  Is this meant to be?

b.    I have the Airnav Selcal Decoder running on one soundcard and the =
Airnav ACARS Decoder running on a second sound card, which seems to be =
working OK but when I try to interface the Selcal decoder with Airnav 4 =
it doesn't work.  I have removed the ACARS decoder and runn the Selcal =
decoder on bothe sound cards but still the Airnav 4 interface does not =
recognise the Selcal decoder.  I cannot integrate the selcal decoder =
into Airnav 4.

c.    Airnav 3 had a utility to automatically plot the proposed route of =
an aircraft if two or more waypoints were entered.  This does not happen =
now in Airnav 4 causing additional work to find out the advancing track =
of an aircraft.  Again, is this missing on purpose?

d.    On ocassions during the 30 minutes trial period. opening up the =
Help tool slows down the overall processes running on the computer until =
the computer freezes and a reboot is required.  This may be because I am =
trying to do too much within the limited time but I don't think it shoul =
crash my system!

e.    When running the acars interface to the Airnav ACARS decoder, =
position reports being reported by aircraft are displayed on the map but =
no aircraft label can be found.  There is no effect when I try to =
Show/Hide Label Details.  I cannot get the details of the flight =
displayed on the map.

f.    In the Flight Management Mode there is no Flight Number box to =
enter flight number details, therefore I cannot manually create a flight =
unless I do so in a Terminal Mode window.

g.    Someone has omitted the South West Pacific (SWP) HF frequencies =
from the list!

h.    There appears to be no speed indications anywhere for a flight.  =
In Airnav 3 this feature displayed in the Flight Management mode was =
really useful to confirm that the times heard from listening to a HF =
position report were entered into Airnav correctly by checking that the =
speed was something realistic.

g.    On one of my computers running Windows XP Airnav 4 will not =
download data from the internet.

The things I like about Airnav 4 are:

a.    the dynamic map,=20
b.    the display of waypoints, airports and flight routes, although the =
program crashed when I displayed the flight routes and zoomed out,

The things I hate about Airnav 4 are:

a.    the database still sucks!!!!  I cannot think of a more restricted, =
least accessible database known to aviation enthusiasts.  The concept of =
only being able to edit a single entity is really outdated.  I want to =
be able to remove hundreds of records from my Airnav database to speed =
up performance, tailor the system to my needs and have control over =
which database tools I use for the job.  As an example, the SW Pacific =
airlines and aircraft are not particularly up to date so the add 8 =
Boeing 737s to the Air New Zealand fleet in the Airnav database I have =
to do this one by one.  If I could use MS Access or a text delimited =
database I could block copy or cut and paste repetitive data to ease the =
method of updating.  The same goes for deleting records, why can I not =
select 20 records and delete them without having to do it one by one?  =
The databse is the one BIG let down that won't sell Airnav 4 to me.  I =
have expressed my dislike before on the database issue but it sounds =
like my voice hasn't been heard (and I am sure others feel the same way) =
and cheap and nasty solution has been used.

The product has been run with varying levels of reliabilty over the 30 =
minute trial period on the following two computers:

Pentium 2 300MHz 256 Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, trial versions of the Airnav =
Selcal and ACARS decoders.

Pentium 4 1.6 GHz 256 Mb RAM, Widows XP, Airnav 4 standalone for =
internet flight tracking (see above).=20

I am sorry but I will not pay for another Airnav despite it's appealing =
nature and specky GUI.

Regards and good luck with the support issues as they arise.

Mike Jackson



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