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Jeppesen discontinuing their paper products

I talked to Jeppesen reps at Tannkosh this weekend and got some interesting information.

Jeppesen are going to cease production of all paper charts. This has started already (the UK VFR maps got axed this year) and will continue based on two factors

1) revenue of each chart

2) availability of an electronic version of the chart.

They did not give me a hard date but said that it will happen fairly quickly. Two main electronic products replace the paper maps: JeppFD for IFR and Jeppesen Mobile Flight Deck VFR. One consequence is that fixed layout charts will completely disappear in favor of dynamically constructed vector maps.

JeppView for Windows will remain, there are no plans to decommission this product. However, "soon", JeppFD will receive VFR vector maps for your current coverage free of charge. Today it already contains an up to date vector IFR enroute map. This is great news for all IFR pilots as you really should have VFR maps but might not want to pay loads of money to get them. Note that the VFR map implementation in JeppFD will be less powerful than the JeppFD VFR product, e.g. no combination of enroute and terminal/taxi and traffic patterns.

I think this is mostly good news. The 28-day update cycle vector maps are far superior to the once-a-year raster maps.

This is great news for all IFR pilots as you really should have VFR maps but might not want to pay loads of money to get them.

Jeppesen mobile flight deck (IFR) already now shows terrain and low level airspaces. I need no other VFR chart than that. Of course VFR only airfields with their traffic Patterns would be nice, but Jeppesens have always been selling those separately so I can't imagine that this is going to change. Why would they slaughter a milking cow like their "Bottlang Airfield Manual"?

EDDS - Stuttgart

What will happen to their Raster Charts product?

That is currently the only way to display and print off Jepp VFR charts from a Windows PC.

I don't want to have to use an Ipad to get VFR charts . Also I do want to print off the bits I need and printing something usefully from an Ipad requires you to join the Church of Scientology. It is damn nearly impossible to even get a PFD out of the damned thing.

Anyway it would be stupid of Jepp to ignore the Android market. Apple's market share is going down.

If they produce decent vector charts (basically vector versions of their Raster Charts, as they currently do for a couple of countries) for Jeppview or Flitestar, I will be happy. Especially if one can print off strip charts along a route, which is currently not possible (why?) with the Raster Charts.

One does need VFR charts for an IFR flight unless the flight is wholly in CAS end to end and all possible alternates are in CAS and you have two engines so never need to land anywhere unplanned

Do they still sell the Bottlang printed manuals? I thought that turned into what they sell as VFR Europe (or some subset of) for Jeppview, plus the corresponding pages in what they call Text Pages. I used to fly with the Bottlangs in 2004/05 (pre-IR) and they were just manuals of what we today call VFR airport charts and VFR Approach Charts, plus a sheet with some (mostly nonworking) phone numbers, and the VFR Europe product gives you exactly the same.

I think the market for their printed "VFR/GPS" charts has been very region-selective. Nobody I have ever met in the UK used them, probably very few people in Germany used them (they have good national charts), same for France, and the rest of Europe has relatively much less GA. And with a lot of pilots going electronic, a lot of that must have evaporated quite suddenly.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Also I do want to print off the bits I need and printing something usefully from an Ipad requires you to join the Church of Scientology.

No! All you need is an "air print" capable printer (now standard issue in almost every handling agen's office and hotel lobby). The current version of iOS comes with all the necessary drivers and protocols preinstalled. I've been using it for quite a while now, including printing Jeppesen charts off Mobile Flight Deck.

EDDS - Stuttgart

What will happen to their Raster Charts product?

That was what my whole posting was about They are getting axed, no more raster charts, neither on paper nor DVD. Only locally rendered vector charts requiring a tablet/smartphone.

Also I do want to print off the bits I need and printing something usefully from an Ipad requires you to join the Church of Scientology.

Printing is not what you are supposed to do for enroute charts and the message I got is that they give you a key for two devices so you have a backup. I don't print anything at all and haven't for three years but just asking about it gave me this "what kind of dinosaur are you?" look.

Anyway it would be stupid of Jepp to ignore the Android market. Apple's market share is going down.

Yes but they don't see that yet. iOS market share is rapidly declining but it still near 100% among pilots and it might be commercially the right decision to ignore Android.

Do they still sell the Bottlang printed manuals?

That information is part of JeppView at the moment (via the Jeppesen Text Reader) and is going to be integrated into JeppFD.

Printing is not what you are supposed to do for enroute charts and the message I got is that they give you a key for two devices so you have a backup. I don't print anything at all and haven't for three years but just asking about it gave me this "what kind of dinosaur are you?" look.

Yes; that is the "Facebook generation click click click hey it works so sod everything else" approach to life (no offence intended). I see this every day, with half of adults not capable of reading more than 2 lines of an email...

Mine is a bit more robust.

And I certainly don't intend to buy another printer.

I am fairly sure that nobody in Jepp marketing in Europe flies a plane under IFR. Maybe an IFR kite.

Interesting they have reduced the # of keys from 4 to 2. I recall somebody talking to them about reducing prices and they said they might consider it if they reduced from 4 to 2 but I didn't know they actually did it.

How much is European VFR+IFR? If it is still ~ €1500 then they have reduced from 4 to 2 but kept the price the same

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I am fairly sure that nobody in Jepp marketing in Europe flies a plane under IFR. Maybe an IFR kite.

The Jepp employee I talked to:

  • was young

  • pretty hot

  • had an ATPL

  • a type rating for Citations

  • a lot of flying experience all around the world.

Interesting they have reduced the # of keys from 4 to 2.

That is for Jeppesen Mobile Flight Deck VFR. For JeppView it hasn't changed I think. I still have my 4 keys all working.

Jeppesen mobile flight deck (IFR) already now shows terrain and low level airspaces. I need no other VFR chart than that.

Two main things I am missing today:

  • FIS frequencies

  • VRPs (visual reporting points)

BTW: I forgot another big news: Very soon, JeppFD is going to have geo-referenced charts for all of Europe. It's been in the database for some time and is now finally becoming available.

Two main things I am missing today: FIS frequencies VRPs (visual reporting points)

For the FIS frequencies you can always ask the tower controller or radio operator when leaving his frequency. And for VRPs I don't care much because airfields/airports that have them usually have a control zone and an instrument arrival/approach so I will cancel while on the approach and proceed visually as I like.

NB: And I also can confirm 4 keys for Jeppesen Mobile Flight deck IFR.

EDDS - Stuttgart

For the FIS frequencies you can always ask the tower controller or radio operator when leaving his frequency.

Sometimes when IFR, I like to "do a Ryanair", that is ask FIS to read METARs of the whole of Europe to me. That's when I open my VFR raster charts and look for the FIS frequency. I don't know of any other convenient way to get it other than ask the (often very busy) ATC or wakeup some tower controller that is close.

I don't know of any other convenient way to get it other than ask the (often very busy) ATC...

That's how we do it. He gets paid for providing this kind of service. If he is too busy, he will simply say: "Put this question to the next sector". For some larger airports, there are still the VOLMET frequencies that can be found in the IFR Jeppesen.

EDDS - Stuttgart
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