MountainScope: A Philosophy that Builds a More Stable Product

MountainScopeTM : A Philosophy that Builds a More Stable Product

The MountainScopeTM software wasn't started for a business... it was started by a pilot who wanted to build himself an unprecedented situational awareness tool (this was in 1999). That tool grew from a simple terrain map to add aviation data overlays and a wide range of support for external peripherals like weather datalink and traffic sensors.

When it was decided to turn MountainScopeTM into a product in the aviation market (mid 2002), we actually removed several features. We did this to ensure that the information presented by the software is not only useful and easy to read and interpret, but also that it would not be able to be mis-used or mis-interpreted.

And now it comes down to philosophy...

We will not add a feature or display information that...

negatively affects safety in any way by its use, mis-use or mis-interpretation

does not work reliably or that negatively affects the software stability

changes the common meaning of something that already existed in aviation

cannot be made easily accessible in the user interface without changing its design paradigms

Sometimes this means that customer requests for enhancements cannot be implemented because they conflict with these criteria. Nonetheless, we seriously consider all customer suggestions.