Besides weather apps, navigation apps allow you to plan and fly with terrain warnings / situational awareness. However, you often need to activate it separately (at least in Skydemon) to see the red-colored terrain. In case of an emergency, it might save your life, while flying VFR into IMC. Also, the “Flyable Conditions” forecast in Skydemon is pretty useful, so you can check where to expect VMC or IMC conditions. Sure, it’s just a forecast, but after some improvements within the last year, it does a pretty good job of providing a general overview, which you can compare in detail with apps like Windy or Meteoblue. Not to cheat and search for a “better” forecast, but to check if they expect identical or similar weather, plus further details. Windy for example has a lot of webcams, where you can check the actual conditions quite easily. Especially at aerodromes or mountain passes, including meteogramms. And last but not least, the final reality is what you see on-site. If it doesn’t match with the forecasts, act accordingly.
It’s however pure speculation if the pilot has used such tools or not, or if he was familiar with the area (also in bad weather) or not. I’m however convinced that these tools bring more safety, compared to a few incidents, in which pilots used the apps wrong or misused them to fly in questionable weather.
It remains a very tragic incident. :-(
eurogaguest1980 wrote:
I don’t yet know the exact crash location, but you don’t need any software to know if you can fly or not.
One information I read is “near SW” which would be somewhere near Grand Sommartel. That hill is roughly 4400 ft high.
eurogaguest1980 wrote:
I’m holding my breath until I find out who the victims were, since this is such a small community, there’s a painful chance I know some. :(
It looks like it was a sight seeing flight booked for 2 pax. One of them has been identified as Valentin Petit, a movie director from Bourges, France and a second person in their 30ties. The pilot is referred to as being from Neuchatel and in his 70ties.
