Seattle Avionics Map Update

My Seattle Avionics download utility is still showing that the current data available expires tomorrow, 7/20/16. Why do they wait so late? Foreflight already released their update.

Trying to get our TeenFlight airplane updated before I hit the road tomorrow. The plane leaves Friday morning.

I feel your pain. Jepp released data last week, AFS and Foreflight early this week.

I've griped to Seattle Avionics about their typically later availability before and was told they won't release updates late in the week because they want to be around to answer the phone after the updates become available. I get that. Nonetheless, I was hoping they would be out by now though--I need current plates for Oshkosh! Thankfully I have other sources.

IMHO, they just don't get it. It's less than reasonable to expect people to update their data bases during a trip with the inferior update process they provide. As stated, every other company provides updates early--why can't SA?

This one thing is the most troublesome / worrisome issue i have in my choice of Dynon for my panel. Although I like everything about my Dynon panel if I had known then what I know now about the Seattle database updates I would have unquestionably gone with Garmin for my panel.

Dynon needs to put some serious pressure on these guys to get this database mess straightened up or they will loose sales. I just updated my forflight database yesterday and it took less than 30 minutes for half of the USA. VFR/IFR and all of the charts/plates etc. Try that with Seattle. Not only that but the plates do not have the correct date in the margin unless you do a fresh install. Try figuring out if you if you're flying an approach with an outdated plate being displayed if you get a last minute approach change.

I made a call into SA tech support and found out that there were some issues with this round of updates from the FAA that caused them to be delayed. I was told that they attempt to get the updates out a week prior to the effective date.

While we were talking about the slow file transfer process he informed me that the ChartData Manager software now allows us to leave TWO usb sticks in the computer and the software will keep them updated automatically. That way, we can keep one set in the plane and just rotate them out as needed with no data transfer delays.

Shannon

That is the same excuse they've used before. I cannot ever remember their updates being available a week prior to the effective date in the 3 years I've used them.

jabarr said:

That is the same excuse they've used before. I cannot ever remember their updates being available a week prior to the effective date in the 3 years I've used them.

Click to expand...

Exactly while Garmin, Jeppessen, and Dynon all have the updates 1week in advance. They must get their data from a different FAA.

Really messes up those of us that travel between updates and have limited to no Internet access while traveling.

IFR low Charts not loading to USB

With the new update (9/14/16) I can not get the software to update my USB stick's IFR Low. I have tried a complete reformat and two different sticks with the same result.
----------------------------
Copying US IFR Low Altitude charts (South Carolina) to F: ...
There was a problem installing South Carolina to the data card on F:
Update process complete.
-----------------------------------

Anyone else seeing this? I have tried to update several times using two different systems and USB sticks.

The fix

jdeas said:

Copying US IFR Low Altitude charts (South Carolina) to F: ...
There was a problem installing South Carolina to the data card on F:
Update process complete.
-----------------------------------

Anyone else seeing this? I have tried to update several times using two different systems and USB sticks.

Click to expand...

Here"s the fix:

In the ChartData Manager, click Options then Advanced. Click Open the Downloads Folder on this PC.
Go to the ScannedCharts folder then US then LO.
In the LO folder, delete SouthCarolina.LO.zip
Click Update Now in the ChartData Manager.

Database issue

Yep, I tried six different USB memory sticks, all had exactly the same issue. It's got to be something in their data package....

jdeas said:

With the new update (9/14/16) I can not get the software to update my USB stick's IFR Low. I have tried a complete reformat and two different sticks with the same result.
----------------------------
Copying US IFR Low Altitude charts (South Carolina) to F: ...
There was a problem installing South Carolina to the data card on F:
Update process complete.
-----------------------------------

Anyone else seeing this? I have tried to update several times using two different systems and USB sticks.

Click to expand...

Fixed the problem but surprising

Somewhat concerning that you have to manually manipulate the system before it replaces a corrupt IFR chart download. Is there no error checking or subversion updating to fix things like this?

Of course it would have been worse if it HAD downloaded that chart to the USB stick!