Towns now have names on synthetic vision, the map gets aerial imagery, and your screens finally say what they’re for.

This release takes the development branch to production. It builds on the 25 September production release and covers a large run of work on the Fly screens, planning, clubs and the web app.

🛰️ Synthetic vision you can navigate by

Synthetic vision is part of the paid plans. The forward view now has height, ground detail and names.

• Natural ground: the ground takes its colour from the land cover below. The terrain clearance colours still override it wherever clearance is not clear. Land cover within 3 km is sharper (F1870).
• Names ahead: towns and aerodrome identifiers are named in the view, hidden when terrain is in the way (F1870).
• Ground detail: a ground-fixed grid gives you a sense of movement. Roads and railways show within 3 km, and building footprints appear in the near field (F1870).
• A denser near field: the terrain mesh is finer close to you, and the skyline crest line is drawn (F1870).
• Looks where you are heading: the view looks along your heading, using your course when heading is not available (F955).

✈️ Fly screens named for what you are doing

• Vela screens: Flight, Route, Vario, Weather, Airspace and Land-out, each set up for its job and all in the strip by default. Glider task moves to Route. Every screen keeps the hazard layers (F1877).
• One screen framework: Classic is the leftmost page, then Vela, then your own screens, with synthetic vision at the right-hand end. Swipe between them, or tap the screen title for a picker. Your screen set follows you across devices. Classic and Vela are available on every plan, and synthetic vision and your own screens are on the paid plans (F1857).
• Every alert can be closed: each in-flight alert, banner and pop-up has a close. A dismissed alert returns if it escalates, has a new cause, or clears and recurs (F1865).
• Weather pills: when there is no data, a weather pill says so (F1877).
• Radar: the rain radar shows only current frames (F833).
• Steadier compass on the ground: ground turns keep the compass heading unless the phone is yoke-mounted (F900).

🗺️ Aerial imagery and a calmer map

• Aerial imagery: a fourth ground choice on the Fly map and the planning map, available on the Pilot, XC, Pro and Club plans. Download it for offline use, and it sits beneath every aviation layer. It dims after civil twilight, and the credit shows on the map (F1873).
• Detail fades in: map features now fade in and out as you zoom, instead of popping into view (F1301, F1303).
• Runways from zoom 9: runways appear earlier as lines and blend into their full shape as you zoom in. Runway numbers wait until you are close, so they no longer cover the field layout (F1302, F1303).
• One tap, everything under it: tapping a zone, including danger, restricted and hatched areas, finds it at any zoom. The chooser lists the aerodrome of a tapped ATZ or MATZ (F1594).

🧭 Planning

• PLOG, forecast and best height: each leg’s wind comes from the forecast, which you can switch off. Best height is chosen automatically within your minimum and maximum, for fastest or lowest fuel, and the PDF states both (F1849).
• Legal minimum height: the minimum for each leg comes from the SERA minimum height rules. A limit that has not been checked reads “Not checked”, never “No limit” (F1645).
• Departure time drives the forecast: the PLOG departure now sets the wind forecast and the route profile (F1650).
• Route profile: it draws the allowed height intervals (F1749).
• Clearer legs: leg names stay whole up to 14 characters (F1639).

🤝 Clubs, syndicates and booking

• Syndicates: on the paid plans, invite co-owners from the hangar, manage members and set booking rules. On the phone, one Syndicate tile opens a hub where you book from a calendar. A Syndicate pill appears in the hangar and on aircraft pickers (F1793, F1811).
• Club calendar: day, week and month views with flying days and day status. You book from the calendar and see the verdict first. Duties, shifts and a manual rota are there too, and managers can add or remove club aircraft from it (F1822, F1824, F1825, F1838).
• My calendar on the phone: your club flying days, duties and bookings in one place, with your last read kept offline (F1826, F1833).
• From your instructor: instructor tasks show at the top of Plans, on the phone and the web (F1821).

🌐 On the web

• Plan a task: the map answers your clicks with Start here, Turn here and Finish here. Each turnpoint shows its zone and angle, a task saves into Plans with a Task pill, and task zones keep a second angle (F1835, F1828, F1812).
• Tidier planner: pick your aircraft from the hangar, and waypoints sit on one line. The map cursor is an arrow, with a hand only over things you can click. The flight replay bar takes one slim row (F1836, F1827, F1832).
• Map pop-ups: the phone’s pop-ups for every reference point, including DME, and Add to route (F1803).
• Social: Activity with the unread count on the bell, Pilots with connections and requests, and a connection’s flight page. You can also share a flight as a picture, with the route as a code (F1804, F1805, F1806, F1807, F1808).
• Logbook: search for airfields and pick from your own aircraft (F1816).
• New shell: a top bar with six places, and a Home built around what needs you this week (F1785, F1788).
• A new look: one palette, new typefaces and the new gold-wing mark across the phone and web. Sign-in and onboarding are redrawn on both (F1779, F1780, F1781, F1782, F1783, F1784, F1791).

🛠️ Under the hood: lighter and better checked

• Less memory: airspace, terrain and power-line data are now held in the device’s native memory and read from there. The app carries less in its own memory, which helps steadiness on long flights (F1799, F1855, F1856, F1759).
• Smoother synthetic vision: the scene is recorded once per rebuild, and terrain heights are read once per resample (F1870).
• Current foundations: the app now runs on the latest generation of its underlying mobile platform, tested on iPhone and Android (F1580).
• Checked native code: the code that holds terrain and airspace now passes memory-safety, thread-safety and fuzz-testing checks on every change (F1858, F1860, F1862).

🔒 Security

• Components: we’ve updated the app’s underlying components to current releases, part of our continuing work to keep the platform current (F1580).
• Hardening: the native code is built with additional protective checks (F1859).

🔭 Coming next

• A Flight menu organised by subject: Navigation, Airspace, Traffic and Weather, plus Map, Styles, Screens and Data (F1880).
• Spoken alerts, so you hear which hazard and roughly where (F1031).
• Siri and Shortcuts for the nearest aerodrome weather, and iPhone Home Screen widgets (F1581, F1582).