Garmin Pilot (merged)

Jason – could you post a hi-res zoomed in pic of a Garmin airport chart – say LGAV or EGKK?

I would be amazed if anyone had better VFR charts than Jepp-FD right now – because Jepp owned the “pan european” VFR chart business for many years, till 2013. At €300+ Jepp-FD is a lot more than say SD but you get the nice VFR airport charts for all of Europe (I am not sure if you get them for countries not currently covered e.g. Greece – would @Peter_Mundy know?) and these include Germany which SD doesn’t have.

The point is that, knowing Garmin, their “own” database is probably totally insufficient for real VFR flying.
It took Skydemon many years to get to a point where most of the kinks have been ironed out. VFR flying is a delicate subject and nothing short of the very best charts will do.

I also cannot believe Garmin will want to take on the existing firms, selling purely to “tight” light GA. They would never get more than a few k customers, IMHO. It’s a huge job, largely because the raw data is not machine readable.

Greece is on the list Peter but after Scandinavia airports ( Friedrichshafn launch would be nice ) and probably the Baltic States

@Peter_Mundy what I wonder is whether Jepp-FD includes VFR airport charts for countries for which the data exists in Jeppview (VFR Europe sub) but for which Jepp-FD has no enroute data (e.g. Greece).

For example can you somehow navigate to say LGST and see the VFR chart for that?

What I find somewhat interesting is that the two people using GP here fly rather different machines. One is a highly qualified CPL with a Citation Mustang, the other is an inept PPL bouncing a Maule in and out of beaches and soggy fields.

When first released in Europe GP was crap, and it still isn’t fit for purpose. The small/private airfield database is next to useless, as is airspace depiction. It doesn’t even show our local gliding field, let alone glider winch altitudes. For that you need to buy the charts, I suppose, or SkyDemon or PFMS/EasyVFR. I use the latter on a Samsung phone, which gives a measure of redundancy. Still, it’s early days, and in another two years GP may catch up with EasyVFR – or PFMS will hack the FP transfer…

For me, Garmin Pilot’s USP is flight plan transfer to GTN or GNS navigators. Prepare a route at home or change it in flight on the iPad, then with four or five screen touches, the autopilot can follow it.

Peter,

This is the list of countries available in JMFDVFR:

As you can see, there is Ireland which is still covered “enroute-only” (god knows why).

But there is no other way ‘round, i.e. no countries without enroute data, but with terminal charts (that wouldn’t even work because the terminal data gets enbedded in the enroute data).

The lack of charts for say Greece is the reason why I currently still keep my JeppFD (classic) subscription.

I do agree it’s no longer crap. In fact, I use nothing else if not concerned about airspace- in Scotland, for instance. The link to new transponders looks like another USP…

More £££ to Garmin for an upgrade… As Garmin’s marketing dept says “once we’ve got them by the b@lls, their wallets will follow”.

When I was looking 2 years ago for a nice VFR product, GP was my first choice to go on with, also because of the integration, but looking for more information, it was not ready yet for busting Europe VFR and it was a lot more expensive. So I had a trial of SD en JFD and I choose SD. At this moment it suits all my needs and I don’t think there are a lot of people who will step over to a product with potential within a few years, when they have a product that works well and they need it now.

I think we are also persons of habit, we choose for a product and we stay with it for a few years. Every time again it takes time to learn to work properly als a tool with those products. But on this moment, one subscription for a year costs a lot and I have less coverage. Maybe within a few years, when there is the need again to compare, but for now, I think most people will wait a bit longer.