10.3.xx feature requests.

I have been enjoying getting to learn the IFD architecture and look forward to the day I am as proficient working my way around the UI as I am after 13 years of GNS muscle memory.

There are however a couple of features I do miss from my old boxes and I would like to respectfully submit as future enhancements that I am not seeing any improvement over in the 10.3.0 trainer so far.

1. User Defined waypoints (UDWP) seem to be treated like second class citizens in the IFD world. Since I operate regularly to and from landing strips that are non ICAO I am missing out on features available to ICAO denoted runways. I.e. Point of origin. All your AUX/UTIL/Calculators prohibit entry of UDWP even if they form part of the current Flightplan.

Your new visual approach feature is also only to ICAO airports, yet it is possible to nominate a UDWP as an airport with an altitude, which is currently as I understand it only used to inhibit terrain warnings. All you are missing is runway orientation.

UDWP are not displayed on the map unless part of the active FP. I know from a previous reply that this will hopefully be added in a future version.

2. VCALC.

Speaking of UTIL/Calculators. For my typical mission I think your implementation of VSR is of limited use. Most turbines and I guess jets tend to follow a continuous descent profile to the FAF to save fuel and simplify workload so the only real altitude constraint that needs to be observed and planned for is the FAF altitude. In practice the vast majority of both arrival and approach step down fixes in Asia at least are “at or above” altitude constrains which can largely be ignored since planning a CDP to the FAF with a high (1000 FPM+) ROD generally keeps you well above those in any case.
I would have much rather seen an implementation of the Garmin GNS VNAV/VCALC function that gave you an ETE and Descent rate (based on altitude/ rate of descent) to a known (FAF) waypoint on the flight plan. It is quick and dirty but works and all you need most of the time. On the IFD FMS, having all arrival/approach waypoints with altitude constraints is great for situational awareness, but removes the ability to get to the FAF ETE/VSR until it is the next WP to be sequenced, or you manually delete all the preceding altitude constraints.

There is also currently no way to display the ETE to TOD.
From my perspective that is a step backwards and I miss not having it.

I would like to request at the very least an additional AUX/UTIL/Calculator that allows manual entry of an altitude to target to a given WP in the current flightplan (including UDWP) allowing the nomination of distance before/after, rate of descent, and displays  a current ETE and target VSR to that point for those parameters.