Chapter 3

The rails

The two columns of buttons on the map are the rails. A tap does the everyday thing: switch a layer on or off, or open a window. Many buttons also do something on a long-press (touch and hold for about a second), usually opening that feature's settings.

You can rearrange the buttons, move ones you rarely use to More, and save up to five layouts.

3.1Every rail button

A button with a yellow background is switched on. These are the buttons in their factory positions.

Left rail

Button	Tap	Long-press
Zoom	Steps through your zoom levels, widest first	Zoom Levels: set the levels (Set your zoom levels)
Lock	Locks the map so two fingers can't rotate it	—
POI	Select Focus Area (Choose your focus area)	—
Center	Centers the map on your position, keeping the zoom	Centers and zooms to the range rings
LAANC	LAANC grid on or off	LAANC Overlay (LAANC altitudes)
Weather	Radar on or off	Radar / Rain Alerts (Weather radar)
Wind	Wind alerts on or off	Wind Alert Settings (Wind alerts)
Obst	FAA obstacles on or off	FAA Obstacle Settings (Obstacles)
Wire	Power lines on or off	WireWatch™ (Power lines)
Pipeline	Pipelines on or off	PipeWatch™ (Pipelines)

Right rail

Button	Tap	Long-press
Map	Map Settings (Map settings)	—
Search	Jump to Location: find an address or coordinates	—
TFR	FAA TFR Overlay (Temporary flight restrictions)	—
NOTAM	Drone (UAS) NOTAMs on or off (Drone NOTAMs)	—
Rules	Alert rules (Alert rules for aircraft)	—
Filter	Visibility Settings (Hide traffic you don't need)	—
Altitude	Altitude Settings (Altitude settings)	—
Mute	Silence ALL traffic (Silence all traffic)	—
Record	Starts or stops a recording (Record a flight)	Recording settings
Playback	Switches to Playback and opens the library (Play back a recording)	—
Live Feed	My Live Feeds (Start a live feed)	—
Receiver	The receiver window (The receiver window)	Select Data Source (Choose where your traffic comes from)
Tutorial	Tutorials (Tutorial videos)	—

More appears only when you've moved at least one button off the rails. See Buttons you moved to More.

Long-presses that aren't on the rails

The compass (bottom right of the map): opens Arrange rail icons.
The map itself: opens Add to Map, for a custom facility, a custom obstacle, or a silence zone you draw.

3.2Arrange the rail buttons

Arrange rail icons shows both rails as lists, side by side, with OFF RAIL underneath.

Figure 3-2. Arrange rail icons. A pin marks the buttons that must stay on a rail.

To move a button:

Tap it in the list. It turns dark blue.
Use the arrows: Up and Down move it within its rail; the left and right arrows move it to the other rail.
To take it off the rails, tap Move off rail. It drops into OFF RAIL and will be under More on the map. To bring it back, select it and tap Return to rail.
Tap Save.

Figure 3-1. Wire selected (left), then moved off the rails (right). More now appears on the left rail.

Eight buttons can be moved up and down but never off the rails: Zoom, Lock, POI, Center, Map, Mute, Receiver and More. They show a pin, and Move off rail reads Must stay on a rail for them.

Try a layout before you keep it

Tap Try it to put your changes on the real rails without saving. A bar reading Trying "this layout" appears over the map. Use the map for a moment, then tap Undo to go back or Keep to save it.

Figure 3-3. Trying a layout. Wire is gone from the left rail and More has appeared at the bottom.

Space between buttons

Add gap puts a small space below the selected button, handy for grouping buttons by job. To take one out, select the gap and tap Remove gap.

Back to the factory layout

Reset puts every button back where it started. If you have unsaved changes, it asks first.

3.3Save and load layouts

You can keep up to five named layouts, for example one for crop dusting and one for inspections, and switch between them in a couple of taps.

Save as layout (0/5) saves the current arrangement under a name. The count shows how many of the five you've used.
Load layout lists your layouts and Default, the layout the app ships with.

3.4Buttons you moved to More

Buttons you take off the rails live in More tools. They work exactly as they do on a rail: tap to switch, long-press for settings.

Figure 3-4. More tools, holding the Wire button.

More only appears when at least one button is off the rails. It shows a gold dot when something inside it is switched on, so a layer that's on never hides from you. Arrange opens the rail editor.

3.5Features that work only in the United States

Seven buttons use United States data (FAA, NOAA and US utility maps). Outside the US they have nothing to show:

LAANC, Weather and TFR tell you so: "… uses US FAA data and is not available at your current location."
Obst says so when you long-press it.
Wire, Pipeline and NOTAM simply show an empty layer.

3.6Set your zoom levels

A short tap on Zoom steps through your favorite zoom levels, widest first. The button shows which one you're on: no color at the widest, blue in the middle, gold at the tightest.

Long-press it to set the levels.

Figure 3-5. Zoom Levels, with the factory settings of 5, 10 and 40 miles.

Drag Zoom Level 1, 2 and 3 to the ranges you use.
Untick Use a third zoom level if two are enough. Zoom then toggles between Level 1 and Level 2.
Tap Apply.

3.7Center the map

After you've dragged the map away to look around, Center brings it back to your position.