Pick a morning departure from Phoenix to Houston. You are heading roughly east and the sun is rising ahead of you. For the first hour or so it sits a few degrees off the nose, technically to the left of the aircraft. The old version of FlightSide would count that entire stretch as sun on the left, then show a confident right-side shade recommendation.
The problem is that sun five degrees off the nose is not coming through the left-side windows. It is shining into the front of the aircraft. Whether you are sitting in 12A or 12K, that stretch of the flight looks the same out of any window.
When the angle matters as much as the side
FlightSide now weighs each moment by how directly the sun is angled toward the cabin windows, not just which side it technically lands on. Sun broadly angled toward the fuselage counts in full. Sun nearly straight ahead or straight behind the aircraft contributes very little to either side, because it is not reaching the windows from any meaningful angle.
The percentages on the recommendation card reflect this. There are four buckets: left and right for weighted side-window exposure on each side, night for time when the sun is below the horizon, and a new one called Ahead/behind for daylight that is mostly forward, rearward, or too glancing to count strongly for either side.
On some routes, Ahead/behind is the biggest number. An east-west equatorial flight at midday can show 70% or more there, which correctly tells you that neither side of the cabin is getting much direct sun through the windows during that stretch. The recommendation still picks the better side when there is a real difference. The Ahead/behind percentage tells you how much of the flight that difference actually applies to.
The seat recommendation uses the same weighted calculation throughout. A route that previously showed a strong lean toward one side may now show a softer split, because time when the sun was near the nose or tail no longer inflates either number.
What the map and timeline show
The timeline below the map now shows the flight in color from start to finish. Each phase has its own shade: full day, civil twilight, and night. Step through a flight that crosses dawn or dusk and you can watch exactly when the sky starts changing along the route.
Twilight sits between night and day. The sun is below the horizon, but the sky is still lit. FlightSide models it as a distinct phase rather than grouping it with either day or night, and the timeline makes it visible as its own band.
The map shows the same thing. The shaded overlay that marks the night side of the Earth now has a softer transition at the boundary, showing the twilight band across the surface below the route. The sun marker at the aircraft position fades as the route crosses into that zone rather than switching off at an exact moment.
Finding airports by country
Airport search now accepts country names and common abbreviations alongside city and airport names. Type "Kenya" and airports in Kenya appear. "UAE" brings up Dubai and Abu Dhabi without needing IATA codes. "Holland" finds Dutch airports alongside "Netherlands." "Korea" returns Seoul without needing to specify which one.
Try it
Open a morning departure that heads roughly toward the rising sun: an early departure across Europe, or a red-eye that lands on the east coast. Look at the Ahead/behind number. If it is high, the sun is mostly ahead of you for that stretch, and neither side of the cabin is getting much of it directly.