ForeFlight (merged thread)

I just got my new iPad mini 6 and thus had the opportunity to try out Foreflight once again.

To test the current suitability for VFR I planned a trip from southern Germany via Innsbruck to Venezia Lido.

These are my findings:

1. I have the feeling that the overall quality of the terrain rendering/shading has improved since the last time I used it. Together with the added passes and mountain elevations the base map now seems suitable for planning a route through the alps.
2. I am really missing SDs possibility to use landmarks such as mountain passes, cities or peaks for route planning via rubber banding. I know that it is possible to create user waypoints, but that is quite cumbersome. Plus I would not like to have user waypoints spread all over the map. Especially as I could not find a function to manage them in a holistic way.
3. Speaking of landmarks – having the names of mountains and peaks (at least the most relevant ones) would be really helpful.
4. VFR reporting points / VFR routes:
   a) they cannot be used for route planning either (rubber banding does not work and they are not recognized in the editor).
   b) it takes a quite large scale to make VFR routes and VRPs visible on the map – for VFR this is not really helpful.
5. Per leg altitudes: besides the point above this missing feature is probably the biggest issue. Especially on such a route those are absolutely necessary to avoid terrain and/or airpaces.
6. Some labels are hidden behind others: e.g. the ceiling figures for an airport that is part of the route are hidden behind the waypoint.
7. And finally – the pricing: I get the idea behind a three-tier pricing model with the top option for CAT professionals. However, I do not understand why e.g. the new W&B integration into the flight planning has to be a top feature. IMHO this new function is not a feature but rather a bug being fixed. Manually transferring the fuel from the flight planning into the W&B calculation – SERIOUSLY?!?

All in all I am really trying to like Foreflight and I see the progress it has made during the last two years. However – for VFR – it is just not there where it should be IMHO.

Some labels are hidden behind others

Yes; I made a screenshot of that and then forgot

the pricing

Yes; too high for the VFR market. Look at what happened to MFDVFR; at ~€300, outside Germany it failed, despite having probably the best mapping. The failure surprised a lot of people, especially SD which hurriedly packed every imaginable feature into their app before MFDVFR ate their lunch.

Peter wrote:

Yes; too high for the VFR market.

Well, the absolute price is one thing. I think 216 € are fine for a complete product. Additional 100 € for fancy stuff like 3D views, pre-departure-clearances and so on are fine as well if you absolutely need to have that.

But putting basic flight planning functionality like the W&B integration into the top tier and thus artificially diminishing the lower tiers is beyond me.

Being in quarantine the last days I had a lot of time to thoroughly try out FF. Two findings about the graphical depiction of NOTAMS I found out (I do not know if they have been mentioned before in this thread):

1. Airspace related NOTAMs only appear on the map two hours before they become active: i.e. when planning a flight at home a few hours before departure they are not depicted on the map – although they might be published already!
   I noticed this when planning a VFR flight through France and compared it with the same route planned in SD. Especially in France with its myriads of restricted areas that are activated by NOTAM this is a big issue IMHO. It even could be the case that at the time of departure a NOTAM for an active restricted airspace is not shown and will only pop up later, forcing you to re-plan the route in-flight. A workload that could be easily avoied.
2. Airspace related NOTAMs are not affected by the airspace filter (“hide airspace below xxx”): with the graphical NOTAMs activated all active restricted areas will be shown regardless of their altitude limits. Again, especially in France this makes the overall map appearcance much more complicated.

Is the European version different? I only use the US version of FF in which you of course can use rubberbanding to create a route.

172driver wrote:

I only use the US version of FF in which you of course can use rubberbanding to create a route.

Yes you can use rubberbanding for route planning but not with VFR landmarks like towns, lakes or summits. For those you need to create a custom waypoint…

I may be missing something here, but I regularly do exactly what you describe, i.e. rubberband to a VFR reporting point or a point of interest.

172driver wrote:

I may be missing something here, but I regularly do exactly what you describe, i.e. rubberband to a VFR reporting point or a point of interest.

VRP works, yes. But what about a town?

Supersonic wrote:

VRP works, yes. But what about a town?

You rubberband over the town and select the coordinates from the list.

Dimme wrote:

You rubberband over the town and select the coordinates from the list.

Well, that certainly works with any point. I would expect to see the landmarks name in the flightplan instead of the coordinates.