Foreflight record function

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

May the force be with you
Joined
Aug 8, 2013
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First Officer 6PC
I recorded my flight tonight.

Now what?

I clicked record, flew to Austin and back and now I am not sure what the next step is. :dunno:
 
Go to More -> Flight Logs. From there, you can share, upload for online viewing, open in Google Earth, etc.
 
Weird. It shows today's flight but the date shown is Jan 1, 1970.
How fast was I going???
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I recorded my flight tonight.

Now what?

I clicked record, flew to Austin and back and now I am not sure what the next step is. :dunno:
Click to expand...

At least you remembered to click. I never remember to click until after the flight.
 
Brad Z said:
At least you remembered to click. I never remember to click until after the flight.
Click to expand...

HA! I have been meaning to click that button on my last 6 flights.
Last night, I wrote it down on my flight planning paperwork

* Mixture, Boost, Flaps, Squawk
* HIT RECORD
 
I have a bigger problem stopping recording.

Last time, I recorded a photo sortie followed by my drive home. Apparently, I drove all the way home at 100 AGL. My iPad said so.
 
MAKG1 said:
I have a bigger problem stopping recording.

Last time, I recorded a photo sortie followed by my drive home. Apparently, I drove all the way home at 100 AGL. My iPad said so.
Click to expand...

I would give a lot to have a car that could do that.
I bet you are never late to anything.
 
MAKG1 said:
I have a bigger problem stopping recording.

Last time, I recorded a photo sortie followed by my drive home. Apparently, I drove all the way home at 100 AGL. My iPad said so.
Click to expand...
I don't think I've ever shut down and jumped in my car fast enough to fool the auto stop record function. I think it only takes, what, 4 or 5 minutes of no motion to trigger it. Cleaning the bugs off the leading edges takes longer. ;)
 
It's something like that, but I've also had it track my drive home. While I don't know the algorithm they use, I have to imagine that the "stop tracking" timer is reset just by moving the bag enough. So, you stop the plane. Timer starts. You push it back into the hangar, now it's moving again, so the timer stops and resets. Put the iPad in your bag, set it outside the plane while your clean the bugs off. Then your move it again when you go to close the hangar doors. Then you move it again to get to the car. So it's possible the iPad didn't stay still for a full 5 minutes or whatever in a row.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I recorded my flight tonight.

Now what?

I clicked record, flew to Austin and back and now I am not sure what the next step is. :dunno:
Click to expand...

Wait WHAT?!?
You came to Austin and you did NOT call me first? WTH? I asked you in the past to let us (Austinites) know when you're coming down here. Should have said something, we actually had a spare ticket for Buddy Guy at ACL, you could have used it.

Next time call ahead, mmmmkay?
 
BigBadLou said:
Wait WHAT?!?
You came to Austin and you did NOT call me first? WTH? I asked you in the past to let us (Austinites) know when you're coming down here. Should have said something, we actually had a spare ticket for Buddy Guy at ACL, you could have used it.

Next time call ahead, mmmmkay?
Click to expand...


Sorry. Actually it was George Town.
Met KenJr and his wife for dinner.

Next time we will stay the night and meet y'all for drinks.
 
I can be in Georgetown in 8 minutes (flight time). Next time, give us all a big heads up and we'll turn your private dinner into a full-blown PoA meet. :)
 
MAKG1 said:
I have a bigger problem stopping recording.

Last time, I recorded a photo sortie followed by my drive home. Apparently, I drove all the way home at 100 AGL. My iPad said so.
Click to expand...

I forgot to stop MapMyFitness logging after running at the school track. I burned 12,000 calories on the drive home.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I recorded my flight tonight.

Now what?

I clicked record, flew to Austin and back and now I am not sure what the next step is. :dunno:
Click to expand...

Now you view it on Foreflight.com (follow Kent's instructions) and click the KML button. Email it to yourself, open it in Google Earth from a computer and do this: http://www.google.com/earth/outreach/tutorials/kmltours.html

The resulting tour file is tiny (just a few KB ) and will, essentially, be a movie of the flight you took (using whatever imagery you have selected in Google Earth).

Edit to add:
Here's one I made a few months back https://www.dropbox.com/s/bositb24tr95y7d/MWC to ETB Flight.kmz?dl=0
 
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mjburian said:
Now you view it on Foreflight.com (follow Kent's instructions) and click the KML button. Email it to yourself, open it in Google Earth from a computer and do this: http://www.google.com/earth/outreach/tutorials/kmltours.html

The resulting tour file is tiny (just a few KB ) and will, essentially, be a movie of the flight you took (using whatever imagery you have selected in Google Earth).

Edit to add:
Here's one I made a few months back https://www.dropbox.com/s/bositb24tr95y7d/MWC to ETB Flight.kmz?dl=0
Click to expand...

When I record a kml (with avare, not sure if thats important), google earth will play it back as a tour automatically, but it looks toward the ground, if you raise the view to the horizon manually, when it hits the next data point, it resets it back to looking towards the ground. anyone else getting the same results? anyone know if there is a way to set the view to center the horizon?
 
jimbilly said:
When I record a kml (with avare, not sure if thats important), google earth will play it back as a tour automatically, but it looks toward the ground, if you raise the view to the horizon manually, when it hits the next data point, it resets it back to looking towards the ground. anyone else getting the same results? anyone know if there is a way to set the view to center the horizon?
Click to expand...

Not sure why that would be. I can't get Google Earth to play a tour of a kml file without first recording a tour and saving it as a kmz. But the tilt/pan is handled automatically... I haven't done anything to modify that. Though I'm guessing if it resets at every data point, there may be something in the underlying data that tells it to look down. Have you tried looking at the raw data (open the kml in a text editor) to see if there's anything obvious in there?
 
mjburian said:
Not sure why that would be. I can't get Google Earth to play a tour of a kml file without first recording a tour and saving it as a kmz. But the tilt/pan is handled automatically... I haven't done anything to modify that. Though I'm guessing if it resets at every data point, there may be something in the underlying data that tells it to look down. Have you tried looking at the raw data (open the kml in a text editor) to see if there's anything obvious in there?
Click to expand...

Ha, I was doing this as you were responding i guess. The tilt is not part of the KML 'recording' by default, and I guess google assumes 60 deg. when playing it back. To 'fix' it,
You have to do it like this(what a pain):
Save the auto-generated tour as a new KML file, edit the text, find/replace
<tilt>60</tilt> with <tilt>80</tilt>


result, go around the pattern with me:
 

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jimbilly said:
Ha, I was doing this as you were responding i guess. The tilt is not part of the KML 'recording' by default, and I guess google assumes 60 deg. when playing it back. To 'fix' it,
You have to do it like this(what a pain):
Save the auto-generated tour as a new KML file, edit the text, find/replace
<tilt>60</tilt> with <tilt>80</tilt>


result, go around the pattern with me:
Click to expand...

wow, there is another tag you can edit to set the eye height above the path, i set it to 0 and got a tire view, a little too low i think.... <range>
 
jimbilly said:
Ha, I was doing this as you were responding i guess. The tilt is not part of the KML 'recording' by default, and I guess google assumes 60 deg. when playing it back. To 'fix' it,
You have to do it like this(what a pain):
Save the auto-generated tour as a new KML file, edit the text, find/replace
<tilt>60</tilt> with <tilt>80</tilt>


result, go around the pattern with me:
Click to expand...

Interesting. Your KML file is 257KB. My KMZ file is 8KB. But the KML file I used to generate the KMZ file is 1.3MB. Also, the format of my original KML file is vastly different than yours... but my KMZ file has a similar format to your KML.

I don't understand why this is, but it seems like Avare is generating a different KML format than Foreflight does. If I open my Foreflight-generated KML file, I just get the flight track drawn on top of Google Earth (with elevation). The only way to get a tour out of it (that I'm aware of, anyway) is to follow the instructions at the link I posted earlier.
 
mjburian said:
Interesting. Your KML file is 257KB. My KMZ file is 8KB. But the KML file I used to generate the KMZ file is 1.3MB. Also, the format of my original KML file is vastly different than yours... but my KMZ file has a similar format to your KML.

I don't understand why this is, but it seems like Avare is generating a different KML format than Foreflight does. If I open my Foreflight-generated KML file, I just get the flight track drawn on top of Google Earth (with elevation). The only way to get a tour out of it (that I'm aware of, anyway) is to follow the instructions at the link I posted earlier.
Click to expand...

dunno, maybe Avare's format creates the tour for you? All i have to do when i open it in Earth is select the path in the 'temporary places' and the tour button appears below it, and i click play. The kml I posted wasn't the avare generated file, it was a 'save as' so it may have modified it, i attached the original here.

When i tried save-as kmz, the file wasn't readable with a text editor, thats why I saved as kml which seems to be bigger. maybe its compressing the kmz to save space.
 

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Can someone post a foreflight KML here, I want to open that and see how it looks in Google Earth, in comparison.

Thanks.
 
Google earth will open and display a KML file or a KMZ file.

I think KML stands for Keyhole Markup Language. It's plain text and is rigidly tagged and structured like a XML file.

A KMZ file is a KML file that has been compressed into a smaller ZIP file, but named something.kmz rather than something.kml

You can unzip a KMZ file, save it, and then edit the internal KML text.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I forget all the time too. Fortunately I have a Stratus 2 set to automatically record.
Click to expand...

Where is that setting? My iPad is here at home, and the Stratus is at the airport in the plane, so maybe that's why I can't see it. Is it under More > Devices, when the Stratus is connected?
 
jimbilly said:
Can someone post a foreflight KML here, I want to open that and see how it looks in Google Earth, in comparison.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Here are some KML files and one KMZ file:

Foreflight Tracklog
Flight from John Wayne (KSNA) to Santa Monica (KSMO) and Back, plus drive home (oops)
http://goo.gl/mpLG6O

Flight Plan from John Wayne (KSNA) to Ramona (KRMN) – Manually Created
http://goo.gl/nEzDya

Flight Plan from French Valley (F70) to Borrego Springs (KBRG) – Manually Created
http://goo.gl/GbV5Dc

Los Angeles Airspace in 3D (zipped into a KMZ file)
http://goo.gl/8E6Zg7

Los Angeles Airspace in 3D (KML file with the text that inside of the KMZ container file)
http://goo.gl/wSSccf
 
jimbilly said:
dunno, maybe Avare's format creates the tour for you? All i have to do when i open it in Earth is select the path in the 'temporary places' and the tour button appears below it, and i click play. The kml I posted wasn't the avare generated file, it was a 'save as' so it may have modified it, i attached the original here.

When i tried save-as kmz, the file wasn't readable with a text editor, thats why I saved as kml which seems to be bigger. maybe its compressing the kmz to save space.
Click to expand...

That looks more like the KML Foreflight gives me when I open it in Google Earth. When I open your "original" file it gives me a track drawn on Google Earth. The first KML you shared was a tour... this one doesn't give me the play/pause/etc buttons that a tour would. Based on my limited knowledge, I'd have to use this file to CREATE a tour... vs. just opening a KML that already WAS a tour. (Not sure if that distinction makes sense or not.)
 
mjburian said:
That looks more like the KML Foreflight gives me when I open it in Google Earth. When I open your "original" file it gives me a track drawn on Google Earth. The first KML you shared was a tour... this one doesn't give me the play/pause/etc buttons that a tour would. Based on my limited knowledge, I'd have to use this file to CREATE a tour... vs. just opening a KML that already WAS a tour. (Not sure if that distinction makes sense or not.)
Click to expand...

here is a screenshot, just expand the 'place', highlight the path and the 'play tour' button appears below to the right, see screenshot:

attachment.php


then i saved that again as kml and edited the <tilt> and <range> tags to get a pretty cool tour
 
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[email protected] said:
Here are some KML files and one KMZ file:

Foreflight Tracklog
Flight from John Wayne (KSNA) to Santa Monica (KSMO) and Back, plus drive home (oops)
http://goo.gl/mpLG6O

Flight Plan from John Wayne (KSNA) to Ramona (KRMN) – Manually Created
http://goo.gl/nEzDya

Flight Plan from French Valley (F70) to Borrego Springs (KBRG) – Manually Created
http://goo.gl/GbV5Dc

Los Angeles Airspace in 3D (zipped into a KMZ file)
http://goo.gl/8E6Zg7

Los Angeles Airspace in 3D (KML file with the text that inside of the KMZ container file)
http://goo.gl/wSSccf
Click to expand...

ok, check this out, I took your foreflight recording and did my 80 degree tilt trick and saved a tour(attached). the fastforward button comes in handy :)
 

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jimbilly said:
ok, check this out, I took your foreflight recording and did my 80 degree tilt trick and saved a tour(attached). the fastforward button comes in handy :)
Click to expand...

That's awesome. Drive home and all. And, yes, fastforward is VERY useful since I didn't turn off tracking while I roamed all around the ramp at SMO, grabbed lunch, etc. :)
 
jimbilly said:
here is a screenshot, just expand the 'place', highlight the path and the 'play tour' button appears below to the left, see screenshot:

attachment.php


then i saved that again as kml and edited the <tilt> and <range> tags to get a pretty cool tour
Click to expand...

I can't see that screenshot, but I also took the same KML file from [email protected] and opened it in Google Earth. Expanded the place and clicked the "Play Tour" button. The problem is, I still don't know how to quickly/easily end up with a tour-formatted KML/KMZ file. It sounds like you're saying there's an easier way than playing the tour and using the Record Tour button at the top to generate the Tour file. If so, I'd love to figure that out... because it takes almost 1:1 flight time to generate/save the tour the way I'm currently doing it.
 
mjburian said:
I can't see that screenshot, but I also took the same KML file from [email protected] and opened it in Google Earth. Expanded the place and clicked the "Play Tour" button. The problem is, I still don't know how to quickly/easily end up with a tour-formatted KML/KMZ file. It sounds like you're saying there's an easier way than playing the tour and using the Record Tour button at the top to generate the Tour file. If so, I'd love to figure that out... because it takes almost 1:1 flight time to generate/save the tour the way I'm currently doing it.
Click to expand...

yea, instead of recording, you just click the save icon on the tour play/pause/ff control. give it a name, it pops a new tour into the nav panel, then you right-click that and save-place-as from there and choose file type kml.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Where is that setting? My iPad is here at home, and the Stratus is at the airport in the plane, so maybe that's why I can't see it. Is it under More > Devices, when the Stratus is connected?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's in the Stratus settings (More->Devices->Stratus->Status). Scroll down to Flight Data Recorder, and flip the Enabled switch on.
 
I cant get it to play in google earth. It paints the trek.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I cant get it to play in google earth. It paints the trek.
Click to expand...

i'll try the screenshot again, you just click the button with the 'connect the dots' pattern:

attachment.php
 

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jimbilly said:
yea, instead of recording, you just click the save icon on the tour play/pause/ff control. give it a name, it pops a new tour into the nav panel, then you right-click that and save-place-as from there and choose file type kml.
Click to expand...

You, Sir, have just saved me HOURS of time going forward. Not sure why it never occurred to me to try saving immediately, but I'd been going through the whole process of recording a tour while letting it play through and then exporting the recording. This is so much quicker and easier. Let me know if you're ever in the Milwaukee area and I'll buy you a drink. :)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Yes, it's in the Stratus settings (More->Devices->Stratus->Status). Scroll down to Flight Data Recorder, and flip the Enabled switch on.
Click to expand...

And it could already be on with the Stratus saving the flights (this is what I found). If I've got things figured out correctly, you'd need to download the flights from the stratus into foreflight (in the same section Kent mentioned, there will be some thing like "flight logs -> 5" or whatever the number recorded. Click on that and then choose the flight you want to download to FF). Once it's in FF, you'd save it to the cloud like any other recorded flight.
 
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