One point I’d like to make though – during a recent x/c over New Mexico, I did notice how the aircraft position on ForeFlight’s VFR sectional wasn’t completely matching the G1000 airspace depiction. The offset was somewhere around +- 0.5nm. On JeppFD’s IFR chart it showed me smack in the middle of the airway, so I reckon the GPS receiver precision was fine. There may be a slightly inexact mapping of the VFR sectional which I gather is done through a manual process, even in the US.
That’s interesting and gives me something to investigate 
I haven’t noticed Foreflight positioning the aircraft in a different place than visual references (i.e. looking out the window) but I have noticed that if I program in a VOR as a waypoint by name, the position of the waypoint on the Foreflight map does not always sit directly on top of the VOR. My purpose in doing that is to check my VOR receiver calibration.
The G1000 panel is obviously a hugely capable setup, but it was interesting to me to see that on that day my iPhone running Foreflight added to our situational awareness even with a G1000 panel – I guess because we were flying IFR procedures under VFR.
So, how far off is the VOR from the chart using ForeFlight? I doubt it is enough to matter as the charts are not always that precise, You can always zoom enough to show a small distance, typically within a tenth of a NM or so.
Looks like about 1/2 nautical mile difference in location for the VOR I was using… I don’t know whether that means the Lat/Long of the VOR is programmed into Foreflight incorrectly or (more likely?) that the VFR chart shows it in slightly the wrong place.
What is the identifier for the errant VOR?
NCYankee, I just looked at a bunch of US VOR locations in Foreflight. They are all off a bit, but of those I looked at SXC seems to be off the most, relative to the visual location on the VFR chart.
I looked at the registration of the sectional by going to the nearby latitude and longitude at 33 30 00N / 118 30 00W. It is precisely aligned.on ForeFlight and verified by zooming way in to where they cross each other. The SXC VOR is actually located at 33 22 30.201N / 118 25 11.675W. ForeFlight shows it at the same point within the precision of the displayed latitude and longitude at 33 22 30N / 118 25 12W. By zooming way in on the graphic for the VORTAC center, it was drawn at 33 22 59 N / 118 25 16W, I would conclude it is the location of the graphic on the sectional that is not that precise.
Very interesting! Thanks for that.
In cases where airspace is defined by VOR radials, it appears important to know that those lines on the sectional/chart in Foreflight (and no doubt in other similar products) do not perfectly align with the actual radial and airspace delineation. Or in other words don’t let the little plane get too close to the line on the chart.
Still better than the VOR receiver calibration limits.
Yesterday I was out and about, iPad Mini doing its thing with good air flow blowing on it. Ambient temp on the ground was 32 C, and I flew from near sea level to 8,000 ft and back under a bubble canopy. I wanted to check climb rate at high density altitude & gross weight, and also to check VOR accuracy after I’d adjusted it recently using a VOT. Correction, after my avionics A&P and his repair station had adjusted it… Well at least all 217 lbs (99 Kg) of him was in the plane yesterday so we could check things out together, with full fuel.
While I was checking all that stuff I put my hand on the iPad Mini – it was cool to the touch all over and the air flow was good. After landing I shut it off, demounted it and put it on the seat, with the sun shining on it. It then got very hot to the touch, although apparently not so hot as to prevent it being turned on. My conclusion is that with the iPad Mini mounted as I have it, with air blowing on it, I’m unlikely to have a problem with overheating unless I overheat it on the ground between flights.
The entire process of using free digital data, turning them into PDF files, then doing the reverse in an App (ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, WingX) is just odd. I don’t understand, why not displaying the free digital data as vector graphics? When I asked the owner of Seattle Avionics, the reason mentioned was that its because customers like the familiarity of VFR and IFR charts, despite the fact that this data conversion is moronic, because you lose a bunch of useful features, such as de-clutter, rotating labels, proper font sizing when zooming in/out, proper layering of additional info, more accurate hit testing, etc… I found it hard to believe that customer would prefer the familiarity with VFR and IFR charts for the cost of aforementioned disadvantages.
What I found very early on (using tablets in flight since the bad old days of 2004) is that altitude has a dramatic impact on cooling – as you would expect. At 18k feet, the air is half the density but the thing still generates the same amount of heat.
One would assume the Ipad was not designed for that, although it would have been fairly smart to make sure it works at 8k which is the normal airliner cabin altitude.
Yet it self evidently does not work at sea level with sun shining directly on it… well not for very long.
I also find much a greater shutdown likelihood if charging while the device is running. Again, that would be expected – a lot more heat is being generated internally. I don’t think my Lenovo T2 has ever shut down except when it was being charged and then it does it quite easily.
This is why I find it amazing that people believe they can use these toys for navigation instead of panel mounted stuff. I would not even use them for peripheral stuff like terminal chart display, because one really needs those at the critical time. But one cannot carry all the potentially required terminal charts in paper form so a compromise has to be accepted, and the device needs to be kept out of the sun and off the charger towards the end of the flight when it may be needed.
Another thing is software reliability (“stability” in the correct industry speak). The panel mount stuff rarely crashes. I have never had any malfunction across my entire panel in 12 years. But had countless crashes on the T2 or the Ipad, on the ground and in the air.
The entire process of using free digital data, turning them into PDF files, then doing the reverse in an App (ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, WingX) is just odd. I don’t understand, why not displaying the free digital data as vector graphics?
Agreed, but here in Europe the data is generally published as PDFs and the national CAAs will not unwrap it. Jeppesen might, and clearly they do so for the GPS databases, but for some reason they refuse to do so for terminal charts. But then we had this come up before. I can’t find it using the search function (which incidentally does not currently search thread titles) but there is no way a terminal chart like covered in text boxes could be rotated and still be readable. Jepp would have to manually prepare 90deg rotated versions, which they obviously won’t do.
