What the title says. WAC charts are terribly out of date, so when zooming out, outdated navaid and frequency information appears, which interferes with flight planning and requires manual toggling to disable.The sectional view looks just fine when zoomed out.
Can the WAC charts be eliminated?
- Thread starter chemgeek
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If you really want to get rid of WACs, you certainly can: Menu > Check for Updates > Advanced Options, uncheck WAC, and click the "Delete Unselected Data" button.
But before you do, here's an explanation of why they're still there:
The WAC charts are definitely a compromise and they have pros/cons. The benefit of the WAC charts is that for a one-time download (since they're no longer supported / updated), iFly can populate a basic map of the entire US. Users will never pan to a part of the country that's "blank" because they don't have any data at all for it. The drawback is that...well, they're WAC charts, and as you say, they're no longer supported and thus becoming more obsolete as time passes.
iFly tries to mitigate the downside of WAC charts when it can: When on the ground and connected to a good Internet source (or, if you're lucky and happen to have a data connection in the cockpit), if you pan outside the area where you have downloaded data, then iFly will download more Sectional data on-the-fly.
But iFly relies on the WAC charts when there is no other option: In the cockpit when you don't have a good data connection, you may be stuck with only the data you previously downloaded. Without the WAC charts, that means you might pan into an area with no data and so it would just be blank.
Thus, in other words, even though WACs are no longer updated, Adventure Pilot currently believes providing users with the WAC charts is still better than nothing.
If you want to maintain full US map data but hate WACs, then you absolutely can uncheck WACs but select all the states in the US to ensure you have Sectional maps offline. However, that's a lot more data than using WACs plus only data from the areas you're really likely to fly, especially since Sectionals update every 56 days.
Or you can go old-school like pilots flying with paper charts before the ubiquity of tablets and moving maps in the cockpit: Uncheck WACs, select the states you plan to fly in, and just accept that if you're in the air and don't have an Internet connection, there will be parts of the country for which you simply don't have any map data.
But before you do, here's an explanation of why they're still there:
The WAC charts are definitely a compromise and they have pros/cons. The benefit of the WAC charts is that for a one-time download (since they're no longer supported / updated), iFly can populate a basic map of the entire US. Users will never pan to a part of the country that's "blank" because they don't have any data at all for it. The drawback is that...well, they're WAC charts, and as you say, they're no longer supported and thus becoming more obsolete as time passes.
iFly tries to mitigate the downside of WAC charts when it can: When on the ground and connected to a good Internet source (or, if you're lucky and happen to have a data connection in the cockpit), if you pan outside the area where you have downloaded data, then iFly will download more Sectional data on-the-fly.
But iFly relies on the WAC charts when there is no other option: In the cockpit when you don't have a good data connection, you may be stuck with only the data you previously downloaded. Without the WAC charts, that means you might pan into an area with no data and so it would just be blank.
Thus, in other words, even though WACs are no longer updated, Adventure Pilot currently believes providing users with the WAC charts is still better than nothing.
If you want to maintain full US map data but hate WACs, then you absolutely can uncheck WACs but select all the states in the US to ensure you have Sectional maps offline. However, that's a lot more data than using WACs plus only data from the areas you're really likely to fly, especially since Sectionals update every 56 days.
Or you can go old-school like pilots flying with paper charts before the ubiquity of tablets and moving maps in the cockpit: Uncheck WACs, select the states you plan to fly in, and just accept that if you're in the air and don't have an Internet connection, there will be parts of the country for which you simply don't have any map data.
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That sounds like a bug. @Brian, any thoughts?
Edit: Actually, this may be by design. It may be iFly auto-downloading data as you pan. So maybe there is currently no practical way to do what you're asking for. (An impractical solution might be to delete all cache/data in Android, then uncheck WAC and only download states you want, then switch to Aircraft Mode to sever the internet connection and prevent on-the-fly downloads.)
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Wasn't iFly going to implement a worldwide default map layer?
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I had completely forgotten about that, but yeah, the early betas of EFB did have that new World VFR map layer. I'm not sure where on the current EFB development plan that base map layer transition might fall. Maybe upvotes on this thread will bring that back to the foreground for AP.
The last WACs were issued in 2017. Most were discontinued in 2016, making them many years out of date, all the more so considering the decommissioning of VORs and Victor airways as a part of the transition to MON. The default settings of iFlyEFB transitions to WAC at a fairly low zoom setting, and must be manually overridden to display sectional maps and prevent out of date and inaccurate flight information from being displayed. At a minimum, there should be an option to permanent disable display of WAC mapping data.
"The default settings of iFlyEFB transitions to WAC at a fairly low zoom setting, and must be manually overridden to display sectional maps and prevent out of date and inaccurate flight information from being displayed. At a minimum, there should be an option to permanent disable display of WAC mapping data."
This is an issue that needs to be addressed, IFly EFB shows the WACs as current to 2025. I've deleted the WACs but then find areas of the display blank at some zoom levels even though I have all the Sectionals downloaded. More importantly no matter what I do in settings my Android devices default to WAC. We have a new Class C Airspace upcoming which is what has caused this issue to get my attention.
This is an issue that needs to be addressed, IFly EFB shows the WACs as current to 2025. I've deleted the WACs but then find areas of the display blank at some zoom levels even though I have all the Sectionals downloaded. More importantly no matter what I do in settings my Android devices default to WAC. We have a new Class C Airspace upcoming which is what has caused this issue to get my attention.
On a similar, but different note, shouldn't the FAA transition into dedicated digital maps? I realize that iFly/AP has little control, but perhaps if the company officials got with the Brand G, and Brand FF officials, AOPA, EAA, and the rest of the alphabet groups and GPS/EFB companies convinced the FAA to modernize. It would seem this would allow "infinite" zooming, text should be always right side up, able to be selectively eliminated, or eliminated based on zoom level and altitude, and perhaps other advantages.