The way it is now is as you describe. The user has to enter all of the route info. That is great if you know it already. A lot of times one has to go to another tool and get the route and then type it in. This is where I think FF is still a little weak, in the flight planning area.
Agreed; most tools now, including FltPlan, show recently issued ATC routes between any two airports, and if there are none, will at least suggest an airway routing you can then modify.
Man, you guys like baggin' on ForeFlight don't you?
It is not "missing" that particular feature - In fact, it's right in front of you, don't know how you can miss it...
Put in your departure and destination airports and an altitude. At the bottom of the nav log, tap the "ATC Routes" button. You'll see the recently-issued routes just like on fltplan.com and if you tap one it'll become the active flight plan.
I know that FF, for example, allows me to enter a route than include SIDs, STARs, Victor airways, etc. What kind of "automatic" route-finding are you talking about?
I am looking for the auto-route feature like one sees at Voyager or Golden Eagle. It where one can select low altitude VOR to VOR or airway routing and it figures it out on its own. Then I can go in and edit if I want.
Mark, if you use DUATs or the packages that derive from DUATs such as Scott has mentioned, you can put in a departure and destination and then ask it to generate routes using one of the following:
* Victor airway auto-routing
* Victor airway w/SIDs/STARs
* Jet airway auto-routing
* VOR-Direct auto-routing (doesn't care if there's an airway as long as the route remains within the service volume of the VORs used)
* Direct routing for GPS with intermediate lat/longs
* Direct routing for GPS without intermediate fixes
* Direct routing for VOR/DME RNAV (this is VERY nice if you have a KNS 80 aboard)
* User selected routing that can combine all of the above - For example, if I typed KMSN *G KELSI *V KLOM it would route me GPS direct from KMSN to KELSI and via Victor airways from KELSI to KLOM if I remember correctly. (Been a while since I used it.)
In reality, I've never been given an airway routing except on the East coast, with one exception. West of the PA/OH state line, we pretty much get direct all the time except for when Chicago interferes, in which case we get sent to KELSI just about every time (I have gotten RV RFD V128 SMARS Direct... Once).
Scott, one hint that may help you: I'm assuming most of your need for the planning stuff is that you're flying out of the Chicago area and are given specific routes to get out - What you can do is put the beginnings of those routes in - The parts that get you out of Chicago Approach's airspace - And save them as favorites. Then you'll be able to just tap one and put your destination and altitude on the end of it, assuming you're cleared direct after you're out of their airspace.