Vasa’s excellent article can be found here
Peter,
Regarding this …
Mobile FD is the Ipad product; I believe one can get the PC version (Jeppview basically) for very little extra (I can’t find it on their website but vaguely recall it is about €100) and that is needed for printing stuff off, etc which I think would be really useful.
I had Jeppview on the PC long before the ipad ever existing and printing worked ok with original-like quality although the printer interface was very clunky A4 vs A5 etc. However at some point Jepp changed their chart engine and the charts simply don’t print well. A lot of resolution is lost. I don’t use the IFR charts, but the VFR charts look really poor when printed off compared to the ipad view. Today, the printout is the same whether done from JeppView on a PC or JeppFD on an ipad.
The IFR Minima app is iOS only but available for free and maintained by the community of pilots using it. The calculation is more or less straight forward, but there are quite some variables and seemingly (from what I see) users of the app that make their own calculation, don’t all come to the same minima for the same approach. So, we have a few professional pilots that verify many of the approaches. The approach would then show as verified. Of course, it is always still your responsibility to do your own calculation.
To be honest, I use it only if I have the idea that the weather at my arrival airport will be close to the minima. And it then takes only a few seconds to calculate. Otherwise, I don’t even bother calculating it ahead of the flight and if the weather on ATIS or TAF is not too close to the minima, I don’t even bother while en route.
@Jonas — we do have all the plates and get them from Eurocontrol. We did not get around yet to create an app, but it is on our short list.
I personally used to fly on the Jeppesen approach plates but stopped more than a year ago and only fly on the state / AIP plates. OK. They are not consistent and not as nice as the Jeppesen, but they do the job and safe me quite a lot of money. :-)
Peter wrote:
Incidentally, do Jepp offer the four installs on the Ipad product also?
They do – I have a quarter of that product. It works well for IFR, with all charts georeferenced (obviously not charts like STAR’s that are not drawn to scale).
The VFR charts are more, shall we say, entertaining. Jepp apparently has some problems with sources for VFR info.
Is there an Android equivalent?
And approach plates should use the same format through out EASA
Aeroplus has a great app for calculating MDA(H) and DA from OCH…as well as visibility minima… App is called IFR Minima
Jonas wrote:
Where can i find all AIP approach plates for europe?
Would like experiment and make my own approach plates app. Maybe it is possible through eurocontrol API?
Yes, that’s possible. You can use this as a starting point to find out how.
Hi Jonas
Have a look at Circle to Land app – it does exactly that and is quite good!
Hi,
Where can i find all AIP approach plates for europe?
Would like experiment and make my own approach plates app. Maybe it is possible through eurocontrol API?
Jonas
