ForeFlight (merged thread)

Thanks to Snoopy I had quite a bit of time last night with FF on the Ipad Mini 5.

It is packed with functionality but more to the point it does do a lot more than I thought which is useful for VFR around the UK. The profile view does appear to show CAS correctly, too, including notamed prohibited areas

I need to do a flight test to see how the profile view depicts the trajectory if you are climbing or descending. SD shows a sloping line representing your ROC/ROD so you can tweak these to go under some CAS ahead; a constant activity in the UK and a major source of busts.

Some gotchas remain which ought to be fixed. For example you can develop a Eurocontrol-valid route, but it isn’t clear which date/time was used for the validation. And then when you come to file the FP there is a second option to set the date/time, but this can result in a loss of validation (which cannot happen in the US). IFR routes should be prepared for a clear date/time which you clearly set somewhere.

Obviously FF does not compare with AR (which is basically a server-side route generator with some briefing pack generation) but on the AR you specify the route and the date/time absolutely clearly at the start, and that is the only way which makes sense in Europe.

The downside of lots of features is that it takes time to learn the “paradigms”. Some of the features are not easy to find twice

I also need to find out whether the ETA can be manually tweaked, for a given ETD, i.e. can you hack the EET. This is needed in a few cases e.g. the EDNY show where the tower cancels your FP if it doesn’t fall within the slot you booked, forcing one to use a different FP filing service. Eurocontrol has an approx +/- 1.5x leeway on the EET, versus their (secret) aircraft perf model. The AR does not allow EET editing so for that I use EuroFPL.

I believe Snoopy plans to run one of our Tuesday 2000Z Zoom meet-ups on the topic of FF, which would be great.

You can manually adjust Time Enroute in the „File flightplan“ form

and all EET point times in „Other Info“

Today I sent again e-mail about routing problems, reporting practicality the same problem – FF’s inability to find optimal route or to find valid route at all. I hope they will pay some attention to this and dedicate resources for resolving. The problem exists for years and it seems that nobody wants to open this can of worms called Eurocontrol routing, like the people who are familiar with the code are not part of FF development team anymore.

Emir,

Can you PM me with a copy of your email to [email protected]. The folks who do the routing are all based in Denmark and are the same. The team has added members, but the original team members are now in lead positions in the same area.

PM sent but pictures are omitted because EuroGA doesn’t transfer them.

FF team replied that routes I provided (both wrong and good ones) were sent to the team. I understand that problem can be solved by analyzing what went wrong in this particular example but there are so many examples where routing is weak that I’m not sure my examples have some important value.

Emir wrote:

PM sent but pictures are omitted because EuroGA doesn’t transfer them.

I sent you a PM with my ForeFlight email address. You can send me the full email copy along with your identifying email so I can follow up.

Done.

I did the first flight test today with FF. VFR around south east UK.

It is much better than I expected after some reviews posted.

Some random observations:

• It appears to correctly show UK CAS, charted DAs, and notamed “prohibited areas”. This is good, and I don’t understand comments posted in recent months saying it is no good for VFR. Can anyone post examples of actual issues, with the current version of FF? Maybe there were issues in some other countries, but that was always the case with all satnav apps (Italy comes to mind).

• It nicely shows the aircraft on an approach plate, though only in plan view (laterally). Some products I recall (Collins kit in a CJ4, or maybe a TBM?) showed it on the glideslope also. But then it would be a lot of work digitising the free AIP plates in 3D. This is very neat:

• The profile view can take a long time to initialise. Today, it took a minute or two

However, at that point the battery was around 4% and maybe FF reduces the thread priority if battery is low?

• The profile view is adjustable horizontally (i.e. distance ahead) but not vertically; it always shows the ground at the bottom and about 20% extra above the aircraft. If there is a setting, we (2 of us) could not find it. Arguably this is actually OK. It might just facilitate a climb into CAS if you weren’t watching stuff.

• The profile view does not show a climb or descent (as a sloping line). This is desirable because in European VFR one is often doing a descent aimed to get you under some CAS. This was a descent of about 500fpm:

• The profile view often shows stuff which is obviously not there. We could not quite work it out but suspect it is to do with the corridor width (1nm default) being actually 5-10nm. However that would surely have been reported by now in the US. Or it could be some other setting e.g. the convergence speed setting (which should be irrelevant; the profile view should show an instantly recomputed view of affecting CAS etc.) In this case there is no “London TMA 3” on the aircraft track, above 3500ft

• The profile view is slow to update – tens of seconds sometimes. The above issue may be one manifestation of that, but that display persisted for ages. This is another case. Some tens of seconds earlier, the aircraft was pointing as per the drawn-on magenta line, and the profile is right for that (EGKK airspace).

• FF does draw more power than most other apps (this was reported way back) so start a flight with a fully charged Ipad. I was using a charger which has two outputs: one is a straight 500mA USB (no charge rate negotiation) and the other a 1A faster charger implementing the standard negotiation protocol (on the A/B data lines). Both were only just managing to maintain the battery level. Moving FF to background restored charging. I guess the lesson is: if you are installing one of those USB power outlets, make sure it implements the 2A Apple fast charge, not just the standard 1A/2A version used by everybody else.

Most issues I am reporting are to do with the profile view, which many won’t use, but it is handy for CAS/DA/PA etc avoidance.

I am mainly an “IFR pilot” in mainland Europe but it is stuff under VFR which gets you busted in Europe and most especially in the UK, so UK VFR needs bulletproof tools. There is no practical way to get busted under IFR (cleared, in CAS, etc) because you can just say “unable” when ATC sends you into a CB

Peter wrote:

FF does draw more power than most other apps (this was reported way back) so start a flight with a fully charged Ipad.

Yes, of course. As a data point, I get about 4 hours of continuous use out of an iPad Mini 5. Normally that’s plenty and I charge it at the next fuel/coffee stop. Failing that I have a powerbank that keeps it at the level it was when I plug it in. I usually do that around the 40% mark. In any case, on longer x-countries I carry a Mini4 as backup.

I went through several chargers before finding one that maintains my iPad Mini at 100% charge indefinitely. Mine is a cigar lighter type 2 Amp USB, plugged into an independently fused portable socket in the glove box. It works without issue, and the power cords are routed almost invisibly.

I haven’t once flown without FF (and Stratus ADS-B traffic etc) since getting it.