iFly GPS Forum

I'm sure the posters on this site are a small percentage of iFly customers, way < 1 percent.

We use two tablets in the plane. When I want to see Traffic clearer, I switch one of them to Vector Mode. (Although the new Traffic RADAR Instrument has mitigated that a lot.) But I feel naked trying to fly Vector mode, with all the other Random-Access data from a chart missing.

My airplane partner used to design FMC's for Honeywell and Boeing. The Big Iron guys fly Vector mode - although that might be in part for historical reasons. Back in the early days of CRT's for displays, and limited processing power, they were pleased that they could draw anything at all, and vector graphics was the thing back then. (Track up too.)

Nowadays, given that there's so much automation in the cockpit, the Big Guys don't really need to read charts anymore. They just do what ATC (or their datalink) tells them and glance up occasionally from their crossword puzzle to make sure that ownship is on the magenta line. And with two turbines, they're not really worried about keeping track of what airports are nearby. They probably couldn't land on most of them anyway.