iFly GPS Forum

I don't think I was snippy.  I was just pointing out that what you and the other person offered as solutions were in fact not solutions in the least.  So, don't take offense at that.

Here's my bottom line in this and in life in general: something is better than nothing.  Nothing is what we have now.  My suggestion would aid in planning, and the distance ring would aid in an emergency.  Neither one could be relied on to be accurate, but neither could the most accurately calculated course line or distance ring -- they're bound to be wrong at least to some degree, especially since iFly has no way to know for certain what the winds aloft are at this very second at this very altitude or how they're interacting with the terrain.  I'd rather have something that would guide my planning and emergency reactions than a whole lot of accurate nothing.

I do some flying like that.  I also fly over the North Cascades where there's no roads -- not even Forest Service roads.  Airports, or even fields under cultivation are far, far apart.  Unless you stay within gliding range of one of 2 highways there's no place to land and they're never going to find you if you do survive.  I can and do drag the course line all over hell & breakfast, but it's just a guess on whether I'm close enough to landable areas.  It all looks close on the screen.  I have no idea whether I can glide 1/8", 1/4", or 1/2".  Depends on the zoom level.  Depends on my altitude.  Depends on which plane I'm flying.

Again, all I'm looking for is an approximation.  The data is all there for the software to do that.  It's an option I'm looking for, that can be turned on and off and I'm not telling you that you need to use it.  I get from your reponses that it wouldn't be helpful to you based on your type of flying.  But that doesn't mean it's not needed or wanted by other people based on their type of flying or how they want to do their planning.  See the initial responses above.  We're all using the software a little differently and we're flying different planes at different altitudes with different glide ratios (e.g. neither of my planes will do 9:1) over different terrain, and we have differing comfort levels with being beyond gliding distance of landable areas.