A tidier app that saves as you go, airspace choices in the Brief and glide sums for glider pilots. The vario still does the shouting.

This release takes the development branch to production, and brings together the morning and evening rollouts on 8 October. It builds on the 7 October release: everything described there is still live. The redesigned Flight menu listed there under Coming next arrives with this release.

🗺️ Airspace choices in the Brief

Building on 7 October, you now make your airspace decisions in the Brief, step by step along the route.

• Each airspace step: a red step means the route is stuck there. An amber step means you have a real choice, which comes up only on MATZ, ATZ, CTR, CTA, TMA, Danger, Restricted, TMZ and RMZ. Red and amber steps carry four buttons, Avoid, Fly over, Fly under and Through. Each one switches the answer in place, and a Through step shows the call to make. Choosing Avoid on a MATZ reroutes the plan straight from the Brief (F1538).
• One place to look: a banner counts the steps that need an answer, and the Brief button on the rail carries the same count. The separate airspace button has gone from the rail. Details shows the same steps as the Brief (F1538).
• Adding a waypoint: a hint reminds you that a long hold on the map adds a waypoint, and the pin you are holding turns red (F1538).

👆 One tap, everything under it

Tap RAF Cranwell and you might mean the aerodrome, its ATZ, the MATZ or the aircraft overhead. Where map features overlap, a single tap now lists them all in large, easy rows, ridge lift cells included. Pick one to open its details, then step through the rest without going back. This works on the planning map and on the modern Fly map (F1594).

⏱️ Planning: times, wind and fuel

• Leg times: the Route Brief’s leg times, the sunset and fuel warnings, and the en-route time passed to Fly are all worked out from the cruise speed and level you entered (F1646).
• Wind from the forecast: Route settings fills in wind direction and speed from the forecast for your departure time. Tap Refresh for the latest. If you haven’t set a departure time, it asks you for one. If you know better, change the wind: it shows “Changed for this flight”, and Reset takes you back to the forecast (F1591).
• Fuel remaining: in flight, FUEL REMAINING counts down from your plan and your aircraft (F11).

✈️ The new Flight menu

The modern Fly layout is on every plan, and its Flight menu has been redesigned around what a pilot needs in the air. Free plans come with a choice of ready-made layouts, and building your own layouts is part of the paid plans (F1537).

• Clear pages: every page and sub-page of the menu opens full screen and is clearly labelled and grouped. You are always one tap from getting back to flying (F1537).
• At a glance: the top box shows your next waypoint, and you can expand it into its own tray. An Airspace ahead count tells you what is coming up, and a new page puts your aircraft and fuel together (F1537).
• Change the plan in flight: Direct to, Divert and Return to start are in the menu. The in-air Route page lets you Skip a waypoint, Add one or Undo a change, and a task lock keeps a glider task intact (F1537).
• Map by touch: a long press on the map drops a pin. Waypoints can’t be dragged in the air, so an accidental touch can’t move your route (F1537).
• Your screens, your map: on the paid plans, each in-flight screen keeps its own map setup, including layers, camera and density. You set these on the ground in Settings > Maps, so switching screens changes the map to suit. On Pro you can copy your screens to another aircraft class (F1537, F1527).
• Calls and alerts: the in-flight transit prompt names the unit and its frequency. On the alert popup, the airspace name is easy to read, and alert bands show their full severity colour (F1524, F979, F1570).
• Traffic detail: closing speed and closest point of approach are worked out from your own track. Missing data shows as a dash, not a guess (F562).

☁️ For glider pilots

Four new readouts on the glider in-flight screens. Each one uses real data only, and shows a dash when an input is missing.

• Current glide ratio: the L/D you are achieving right now, on the Task and Cruise screens (F1598).
• Required glide ratio: the glide ratio you need to reach the finish with your arrival height reserve, on the Task screen (F1599).
• Thermal average: your average climb in the current thermal, on the Vario screen (F1601).
• Altitude trace: a small graph of your height over the last ten minutes, on the Vario screen (F1602).

🔗 Sharing routes, both ways

Building on the 7 October share sheet:

• Open a shared route: scan a route QR code or open a share code or link. You see a preview first, then save your own editable copy. An imported plan uses your aircraft, not the sender’s (F1502, F34).
• More ways to share: swipe right on a plan in the Plans list to share it, or use Share route on Flight info. You can also export a route as GeoJSON (F1502).
• QR as an image: the route QR can be shared as an image. The image carries the plan name and “Scan in VelaAir” (F1539).
• Task QRs on Fly Lite: Fly Lite pilots with a foot-launched aircraft can now scan paraglider and hang-glider task QR codes. The task opens as a locked plan. Soaring, Pro and Club are unchanged (F1533).

🎨 A tidier app that saves as you go

• Saves as you go: your plan, Details, Fuel, weight and balance, route settings, logbook entries, settings and aircraft edits all save themselves. A small status shows Saving, Saved, Queued · will sync, or Not saved · Retry. If a save fails as you leave a screen, the app asks you what to do. Adding a new aircraft or logbook entry still has its own Save button (F1552, F1553, F1554, F1556, F1557, F1563, F1564, F1565).
• One look throughout: the planner, Details, weather, winds aloft, NOTAMs, navigation log, walk-out, settings, logbook and hangar now share one design. They have one title bar, consistent text and spacing, and the same words for the same screen in every language (F1551, F1558, F1559, F1560, F1570, F1571, F1586).
• Navigation log: one card per leg, with large figures you can read at a glance (F1561).
• Walk-out: the verdict comes first, above a smaller route card. Airspace along the route is grouped by severity, and there is a link to the navigation log. It shows “Checking” while customs and airspace load (F1562, F1588).
• Plain names: on the Dashboard, Fly Now is now Start flight, and the walk-out ribbon also says Start flight. Me & preferences is now My account. A Plan flight button finishes the manual planning steps. Your chosen aircraft is marked Selected on Plans and Fly (F1588, F1619, F1621).
• Fly tab: the aircraft chooser matches Plans, and presets are labelled as presets. Start flight sits with your aircraft, destination and return, and tells you what it is waiting for (F1587, F1621).
• Smaller touches: the NOTAM Refresh button sits under the type filter. Details tells you where to set your preferred cruise altitude, with a link. Expiry dates are picked on a date wheel. If an added aircraft is so far saved only on your phone, the app tells you (F1588, F1590, F1570).

🛩️ Your aircraft, and after landing

• Adding an aircraft: after you save, you land on the new aircraft’s page. A banner and rings on the tiles show which figures are still missing. Fuel is only asked for where the aircraft burns fuel, and foot-launched aircraft only need mass. The hangar card shows Setup incomplete. The app warns you but never blocks you, and you carry on from wherever you started, whether that was the hangar, the planner, Plans, Fly or Quick flight (F1636).
• Filling in figures: empty boxes show “e.g.” hints, and Use typical values gives you a starting point (F1589).
• After landing: every post-flight step has Close at the top, and you can skip Shutdown while the flight is still recorded as completed. If you’ve typed something, the app asks before it is discarded. Notes are a multi-line box, like logbook remarks (F1633).

🛠️ Under the hood: leaner and better measured

• Database: NOTAMs are tidied away 72 hours after they lapse, and a NOTAM that is still valid is never removed. We reviewed every index, adding five and removing fifteen that weren’t needed. One obstacle lookup went from about 400 ms to 15 ms. Slow queries now report to our monitoring, with alerts (F1642).
• Fresher forecasts, sooner: each forecast run used to take about 45 minutes to process and now takes under 15, using well under half the processing it did. Fresh winds and thermals reach you about half an hour sooner after each model run. Housekeeping no longer holds up the next forecast, an interrupted run picks up where it left off, and every stage is measured so we can keep improving (F1637).
• Traffic monitoring: the traffic service reports its throughput every 30 seconds, with a widget in our monitoring, and keeps much smaller logs (F1638).
• Airspace data: airspace names up to 200 characters and very detailed boundaries are stored in full. Our airspace sources are on the current AIRAC cycle, 2610 (F748, F921).
• Standby site: each backup records its exact replication position, so the standby copy always picks up from the right place (F107, F765).
• Ready for iOS 27: the app uses the app life cycle that the newest version of iOS requires (F1629).

🔒 Security

• Dependencies: we’ve applied further security updates across the app, web and API, and moved sign-in token handling onto an actively maintained component. Every release runs our full set of security checks (F1628, F1494).
• Route sharing: shared routes carry no personal details of the sender (F1502, F34).

🔭 Coming next

• MacCready and speed to fly on the glider screens (F1597).
• Jump to a pinned aerodrome or a dropped pin in flight (F1622).
• After landing, the summary becomes your own flight page, ready to share (F1634).
• Airspace starting choices set from your aircraft and its transponder (F1641).