Change at Foreflight

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asgcpa

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Received an email today from Scott Dennstaedt from AvWx Workshops. He indicated he accepted a position with Foreflight to set direction of the weather component of Foreflight. (Sounds interesting). Anyway he indicated that Beyond the Weather Brief will be cut back. So this may be the last few months.

As a reminder I think he has 5 - 10 seats left at the Chicago seminar in 3 weeks.
 
Got the same email.

Here is the text if anyone is interested.

I wanted to reach out to all of my current members so you were first to know about some important changes to AvWxWorkshops.com, your best online source for aviation weather and training. I hope that you have taken the time to explore all of the features this website has to offer. In order to serve you better AvWxWorkshops.com is now being hosted on a brand new dedicated server. This means improved reliability with even greater computing resources available for future enhancements. While this transition has been pretty seamless, please let me know if you experience any issues.

Earlier this summer, I was made an offer to join the ForeFlight team. You are likely familiar with ForeFlight and may even use their iPad and iPhone apps. I accepted this position and will lead the ForeFlight team in the role of Weather Scientist. My background as a CFI, research meteorologist and software engineer provides a unique set of qualifications that I will employ at ForeFlight to ensure their app remains the gold standard among pilots for flight planning and in flight support. My overall mission will be to set the direction of the ForeFlight app with respect to aviation weather. This will include advancing the capabilities of the preflight weather briefing within the app and increasing the pilot’s situational awareness with respect to weather while using the app in flight.

What does this mean for current and future members of AvWxWorkshops.com? Given that I can’t possibly work two full time jobs, I will have to scale back some of the products and services that are currently offered. The primary impact will be to discontinue the Beyond The Weather Brief live workshops that I have offered over the past five years. I may hold a couple workshops each year, but they will likely be local to the Charlotte area.

I also plan to scale back the amount of one-on-one online training that I offer. I will honor any training time already purchased, but future online sessions may have to be done during the evening or on weekends. New online training students and the purchase of additional online training hours from current students will be accepted strictly on availability. Nevertheless, I plan to continue to develop my signature bite-sized training workshops and will maintain and improve the Internet Wx Brief Roadmap.

In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns, you can reach me at my current e-mail address, scott [at] avwxworkshops [dot] com. However, for any weather-related ForeFlight discussion, please feel free to send an e-mail to scottd [at] foreflight [dot] com. In the coming years, I will continue to provide members of AvWxWorkshops.com with unprecedented aviation weather training and look forward to serving many of you as a member of the ForeFlight team.

Best regards,

Scott Dennstaedt
CFI & former NWS meteorologist
​

This is an interesting development. Scott D. is well known as a top weather educator. His addition to the ForeFlight team hopefully mean that preflight become something more than just a centralized pull of existing weather products from sources such as Aeroweather.gov. Perhaps we might see the addition of more tools like the Skew-T. Perhaps we might see an improved system that helps us make better interpretation of the weather data.

In any sense, I see this as a positive move for both FF and Scott D. and look forward to future releases from both.
 
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As a FF user and fan of Scott's, this is great!
 
Skew-T s in Foreflight's future? Base and top forecasts? Winds aloft overlays?
 
FF can only get better,with the new arrival.
 
Agreed. This is good news for FF.
 
I'm personally thrilled with the idea. Another improvement would for FF to incorporate Jeppesen charts instead of the government charts.
 
asgcpa said:
I'm personally thrilled with the idea. Another improvement would for FF to incorporate the option for Jeppesen charts instead of the government charts.
Click to expand...

FTFY. :)

I used to be a Jepp paper user but FF has made me cheap!
 
Sam D said:
FTFY. :)

I used to be a Jepp paper user but FF has made me cheap!
Click to expand...
Agreed. IMO one of the best things about FF and other tablet chart apps is that I don't have to pay $1000/yr anymore.
 
Brad Z said:
Skew-T s in Foreflight's future? Base and top forecasts? Winds aloft overlays?
Click to expand...

One can hope. With Scott being a big fan of this product and teaching it to those who attend his live seminars, it's not inconceivable he might play a part in bringing it to FF.
 
asgcpa said:
I'm personally thrilled with the idea. Another improvement would for FF to incorporate Jeppesen charts instead of the government charts.
Click to expand...
Assuming Jepp would even agree to put its charts in a competitor's app, how much extra would you be wiling to pay fir the Jepp subscription? I think Current Jepp US subscription in Flightdeck is about $300.

Yes, Scott's joining FF is probably a good thing for both. And us!
 
AggieMike88 said:
One can hope. With Scott being a big fan of this product and teaching it to those who attend his live seminars, it's not inconceivable he might play a part in bringing it to FF.
Click to expand...

Very likely it would be an interpreted version giving the icing forecast directly, that's what I would look for. People expect to be spoon fed information, and that is what makes all these apps so popular, they do a good job of it.
 
Good grab for Foreflight. I will be interesting to see how the Scottd value added product looks and how it differentiates itself from the other products out there. Certainly in my view Scott is one of the top guys for Wx education.
 
Just being introduced to Scottd and have been with the very good people of ForeFlight since 2010. Best wishes to both!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
This could represent a change in many things. With EFBs becoming very popular in GA, maybe the FAA will begin to look at the PP-PTS regarding Wx training, and that could be a huge benefit in terms of safety.

Don't think for a second though that having better Wx products on FF will automagically translate to better Wx decisions across the GA fleet. Most people do not know how to use them in their pre-flight planning, much less in-flight tactical decision making.

Scott- I hope you're reading this thread. GA needs training and I think you can be an powerful influence on that. Way to go!
 
I don't think Jepp charts are worth the very high price. AeroNav charts get the job done just as well since the format change 15+ years ago.

Pro pilots often disagree but then their companies usually pay for Jepp charts anyway. If I were flying outside N. America I would want Jepp for standardization also. But I don't.

Anyway, I didn't know of this guy Scott D. Sounds like a good things may be coming to FF in the future.
 
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