A few hints to get started:

- Don't forget to set the stall speed for your plane
- Don't forget to tap on parked sometime between leaving the plane and driving away from the airport. This will stop counting block time and display the stats of the flight. The app will use the last time the plane came to a stop from a speed faster than walking speed as your block-on time.
- Don't forget to turn on and off the GPS switch on the main page of the app to limit the high power consumption to the time you really need the app.

How are times rounded to full minutes?

The app does all internal calculations in seconds and stores the exact duration of each leg in seconds, but displays them rounded to minutes. Version 1.0 always rounded down. Beginning with version 1.1, the app rounds up and down to the next closest full minute. For instance, 10 legs of 31 seconds duration each (very fast legs ;) would each show as 1 minute legs and be summed up to 5 minutes TFT.

Why is my phone getting so warm?

Once you enable the GPS switch on the main page of the FlightTime app, the GPS module is on. It is normal that during this time the phone gets significantly warmer. The phone shouldn't get so hot that you have difficulty holding it, but it can get quite warm. This should be comparable to when you are running a car navigation app on your phone.

Battery consumption

As long as the GPS switch on the main page of the app is ON, the power consumption is significantly higher. The usual battery life of an iPhone of one to two days is reduced to about half a day. Even when the app is put in the background or the phone is locked and the screen is black, the GPS module remains on. This is necessary for the app to be able to detect your takeoffs and landings as they happen.

For multi hour flights we recommend you plug the phone in for constant charging, if your plane offers a cigarette lighter plug or other GPS outlet where you could plug in this device.

Why do I have to set the stall speed?

The app doesn't know how fast your plane is, but by giving it your plane's stall speed on the settings page, the app has a starting point for calculating a threshold it uses to distinguish between taxiing and flying. There is some more math involved, but the stall speed is a good starting point for the calculation of this threshold. If you notice that for your plane a lower or higher threshold works better, then please let us know by using the feedback button on the main page of the app or email app@stanek.us. The following values have worked well for users so far:

Full Stop Mode doesn't seem to detect transitions between taxiing and flying'

The full-stop mode has a lot more filtering than the non-full-stop mode. For instance, the app waits a certain time before it grants the transition to taxiing or flying in order to filter false transitions caused by short errors in GPS speed. After the app is sure that that the transition was an actual transition, it shows the landing or the take-off with the correct time the transition first happened. This filters a lot of erroneous landings that are induced by the GPS temporarily giving a falsely low speed, especially on the iPhone 4. So the time is still counted correctly, despite the waiting period to be sure that it was a real landing or take off.

Will the app work for glider planes?

In general yes, apart from the fact that the distinction between true flight time and block time doesn't make sense. If you have input on how to improve the app for glider pilots, please email me at app@stanek.us

Will the app work for helicopters?

As the takeoff is detected with forward speed, you might loose out on the time you actually took off to when you started flying. The vertical speed is in current iPhones and iPads not yet accurate enough to be used for detecting take-offs. Hovering will cause additional landings. Try the full-stop mode so short hover maneuvers don't trigger a landing. If you have input on how to improve the app for helicopter pilots, please email me at app@stanek.us

Will the app work for hang gliders or paragliders?

Please let me know if you've tried the app with a hang glider or paraglider, you might be the first :) app@stanek.us

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