Auto Day and Night Feature

SpeakandSpell

Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2007
Messages
10
I would like to see an included subroutine in a future version that could automatically estimate the amount of day and night in a partiular flight instead of having to guestimate manually. This seems that it could be possible if the world airports are included in the database. The more airports in the world that are included in the database the easier this would be. It would be an an awesome feature. ;)
 
well, it could be done, if you know your complete route, your airspeed, your winds etc. Then there is still the problem of different rules per country etc. Too complicated... I'll stick with guestimating it
 
easy

Actually it would be quite easy for the program to make an estimate of the night portion of the flight. The program would only need to know the departure location and arrival location and the total time enroute. After that, an estimation would be easy if the program had access to a sunrise and sunset database. It's not quite rocket science. :)
 
different discussion, same subject:

In the words of Einstein I think it was, "There's nothing, no matter how complicated, when seen in the proper light, doesn't become still more complicated."

I have a feeling that trying to handle day/night time correctly in call cases is a difficult if not insurmountable problem, and the opportunity for error and the payoff may not be there.
One problem I can think of right off the top of my head is whether you're going to calculate when a flight changes from day to night in flight. You have to calculate where the flight is (based on the departure and detination and TAS and then what happens if you don't go direct), when day turns to night (or visa-versa). This is made more difficult by the fuzziness as to when you can log night-time in the air. In other words, the regs say night is an hour after sunset (or after civil twilight). Does this mean if I'm at 35,000 ft, the day/night transition occurs when it's an hour after sunset *on the ground*? Because if I'm at 35,000 ft, civil twilight should be later than if I'm on the ground.
 
Please keep your posts civil. We have been in discussions about this for version 2 development and it's not as easy as it seems. There are a lot of factors involved and rules that have to be taken into account as people don't just fly direct point A to B and determining when/where one crosses over into night, and depending on the length and route of flight, could occur more than once! It is a complicated matter that we have to investigate fully and seabird, a long time Logbook Pro user has been involved in our discussions.

Thank you for your suggestions, again, play nice here!
 
help

I've been an International Airline pilot for 20 years. I'm just trying to make helpful suggestions for features that I think everyone would appreciate. I didnt think I was going to encounter resistance.
 
Don't think of it as resistance, think of it as brainstorming/debating. There is positive that can come out of "intense" discussion of a topic that we can all learn from that we may not have thought of. If someone challenges you, prove your point and how it CAN work.

Just my $.02.
 
well I really didnt come here to debate or to prove anything. I just made a suggestion for a feature as I believed others might think it would be useful. Whether it is a feature that is possible to encorporate or not is up to your team. Sorry
 
Last edited:
No apologies necessary, and this feature has been requested several times, we are well aware and I'm sure something will be done to accommodate, whether in v2 or via a 3rd party developer that contributes a solution. Thank you for your suggestion once again.
 
Ok, I must have missed the non-civil part. Thus far I didn't see anything un-civil.. Anyways, the only thing I can say is that it was a re-occuring post, which was not necesary. Next time maybe search the forum or read previous requests.

Ok, that said, I do agree that a basic estimate is possible, but would not be accurate, therefor not useful. I can guestimate better then the program since I was on the flightdeck (and to be honest, I just don't care how much my night time was :beer: )

I hope my playing is considered nice :dgrin:
 
Last edited:
definition of night

After reading previous posts on this night subject and since we are getting more technical with terms, I would just like to clarify a few things. The FAA's defintion of night is not 1 hour after sunset to 1 hour before sunrise. Here in the United States night is defined as being the time from the end of evening civil twilight to the beginning of morning civil twilight. Civil twilight is defined as the time at which the sun's disc reaches 6 degrees below the horizon. This varies greatly from location to location in the world. Here in the United State we generally consider night to begin at approximately 30 minutes after sunset and to end 30 minutes before sunrise, but this can vary, (from Hawaii to Alaska), to between approximately 20 and 50 minutes depending on the time of year and the latitude.

For carrying passengers at night, the FAA requires landing currency to be accomplished between 1 hour after sunset to 1 hour before sunrise. This is strictly a currency issue and these "currency" landings are required to be logged during this portion of "night".

So really, there is only one definition of "night" in the USA as per the FAA for logging purposes . You can look up yearly tables for civil twilight at the link below. I believe this data could be used for determining an "approximate" time for when night begins and ends at a particular location and used for calculations in the software. I am sure you can find this data elsewhere.

I still believe to have this feature available to estimate the night portion of the flight would be valuable to many, even if the program only estimated a direct routing using a departure to destination great circle route and using an average speed based on the total flight time. The user could have the option to turn on this feature so the software could suggest a value or to leave it turned off. This would be completely left up to the individual user.

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.html
 
Last edited:
so, a 30 minute holding in daylight or nighttime would be halved because it estimated. Also the location where we crossed into night is unsure. You yourself say, let the software "guess" how long it was. Guessing software is not valuable, because then you might aswell let it guess your flighttime based on distance and type of plane.

Neil is very proud delivering GOOD software, which means guessing features are not on the priority list.

Also rules vary between countries. I am a european pilot, so things are different.

Imagine flying from chicago 4pm LT (day) to amsterdam (day) 9am LT via the northpole when it's everlasting light there... how would it solve that???

It may be a valuable add-in at some point for those who are interested in it, but for the main program itself, it would require too much effort for too little accuracy.

I am still a firm believer to not see this intergrated...

my 2ct..
 
:)

searbird, I think you have made your point clear in previous posts as we know you are from Europe and don't like the night idea, thanks for your input :). I fly worldwide as well. The software can be made more accurate with good programming. I think Neil has done a great job with Logbook Pro so far and I think this would be a fantastic feature to improve the software. I would like to hear from others how they think this could be added to the program effectively. ;)
 
Last edited:
Everyone, lets try to keep the arguing to minimum. Energy can be better spent by trying to figure out a good way to implement the auto night feature. The feature is a somewhat complex with some variables involved.
 
I would like to see an included subroutine in a future version that could automatically estimate the amount of day and night in a partiular flight instead of having to guestimate manually. This seems that it could be possible if the world airports are included in the database. The more airports in the world that are included in the database the easier this would be. It would be an an awesome feature. ;)


I wish......
 
Actually it would be quite easy for the program to make an estimate of the night portion of the flight. The program would only need to know the departure location and arrival location and the total time enroute. After that, an estimation would be easy if the program had access to a sunrise and sunset database. It's not quite rocket science. :)


TOTALLY AGREE.....
 
I would like to see the feature added into the software. If you have those few rare times where you hold in daylight long, or you fly across the world VIA the north pole then just edit the entry, otherwise for the most part the estimation would be way more accurate than my guess. It's a great idea and i think that SpeakandSpell speaks for the majority of pilots out there.

1 VOTE for me
 
Before switching to LogbookPro I was using Captain’sLog2000. Captain’sLog has a auto night calculation feature that I found extremely useful. You have the option to turn it off if you’d like. I compared the night time estimates from Captain’sLog with the U.S. Naval Observatory Almanac and the numbers were very close (within .2) of the numbers that I had guessed. Perhaps not an exact number but good enough for government work. They use the Lat/Long information for every airport at a given time, since sunset on Oct. 4, 2007 in KLGA for instance did not occur at the same time as the sunset on Oct. 4, 1988 in KLGA. Does it take into account the altitude of the airplane or if there was holding or not? Of course not, but I doubt that those small inaccuracies would outweigh the benefits. Hopefully we’ll see a similar feature in LBP soon. It would be a great selling point.
 
Does anyone have any recent status updates on this feature? Many of us are automatically importing company logs into Logbook Pro. These logs include block out and in times (LCL time) and would make an automatic night calculation very appealing.

Its been over 2 years since I made any night time entries. Without some type of automatic feature this is going to be a nightmare of a process. Logbook Pro please help!
 
Back
Top