Xavion’s Coverage

Terrain

Xavion covers all of the Earth between -60 and +70 degrees latitude, with elevation based on the Space Shuttle SRTM terrain-mapping mission, with USGS (United States Geological Survey) terrain elevation used as backup for the few areas not covered by the SRTM mission. So, for terrain, all of the Earth between -60 and +70 degrees latitude is covered. As well, we have about 217,000 obstacles that are considered to be a hazard to navigation in the database. Xavion will not give you an approach that interferes with any known obstacles.

Airports

Xavion includes about 25,000 airports as of this writing. This airport database is based on the DAFIF airport database, upgraded with data from Seattle Avionics. For a complete list of airports covered by Xavion, you can download and search the xavion airport list.

NAVAIDs

The Highway in the Sky (HITS) system does store NAVAID IDs and locations (about 7,000 of them, kept current by Seattle Avionics), so you can navigate to them to suit the needs of routine navigation, in the event that you are using Xavion for that. The moment you hit the emergency button, though, the routine HITS navigation is discarded, and Xavion uses the databases described above to give you an emergency path to the best runway to glide to. At that point, all references to NAVAIDs are discarded, since all positioning is done by GPS, following the safest path over or around obstacles and terrain and down to a runway, and NAVAIDs are not relevant to that operation.

Charts and Plates

Xavion has an optional Seattle Avionics charts and plates subscription as well, for VFR and IFR charts and plates for the USA.

ADS-B

ADS-B provides free weather and traffic coverage in the United States (usually available above a few thousand feet or so). Xavion listens to this data with an iLevil or Sagetech Clarity ADS-B receiver. Outside of the USA, no ADS-B is available, so in that case, you should simply enter the winds manually in flight to get the most accurate guidance. This is very easily done in the preferences window in flight. If you do NOT enter the winds aloft, then we have found that the power-off guidance still works just fine for wind speeds below about 20 knots or so.

Below, you see a map of the airports currently in Xavion, based on the DAFIF airport database, updated monthly with Seattle Avionics airport data.