ForeFlight & Garmin Pilot: Part 5 - Apples-to-Apples - Pre-Flight Santa Monica to Phoenix Gateway

[wayneda40]

In previous episodes of this series, Jan and I were primarily in-the-air flying the aircraft… and therefore our side-by-side comparisons of ForeFlight and Garmin Pilot were somewhat limited by the practicalities of aviating safely. In this Part 5, we conduct a more controlled apples-to-apples comparison of the two products, and then in the subsequent Part 6 we’ll e-fly IFR/VFR/PopupIFR from Santa Monica to Phoenix Gateway. Welcome aboard! If you've used both of these market-leading products, what are your experiences and opinions? Wayne, GeezerGeek Pilot

 

[FPK1]

I'm an Android user, and many were raving about ForeFlight so I bought an iPad Mini and FF. At this time I only fly VFR. I was impressed and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Then I bought and tried Garmin Pilot on the same iPad because my new plane is going to have the Garmin G1000 NXi and I thought the Pilot app and glass panel would be similar so it seemed like a good idea.

I enjoyed Garmin Pilot slightly more and decided to make it my primary app. I can't put my finger on exactly what I liked the best, but I can say I did not like having to dismiss every traffic warning. Lots of traffic here in the Los Angeles area and I didn't like taking my eyes away from looking outside to dismiss the warning screen. Perhaps there's a setting that will allow that to time out, I didn't look.

I soon found as I was planning numerous flights for a 2000+ mile VFR cross country, that I missed the Windows web access on a desktop big screen to do the planning. Garmin Pilot seems like a mix match of various products and apps and does not have the robust Windows web map and planning capability. Fltplan.com is clunky and once you create a plan you get a static map with your route.

ForeFlight, on the other hand, allows the Windows web access and for you to interact with the map and access other data and information through the windows web access planning process.

So for now, I'm back to FF with a subscription to both.

 

[wayneda40]

I'm an Android user, and many were raving about ForeFlight so I bought an iPad Mini and FF. At this time I only fly VFR. I was impressed and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Then I bought and tried Garmin Pilot on the same iPad because my new plane is going to have the Garmin G1000 NXi and I thought the Pilot app and glass panel would be similar so it seemed like a good idea.

I enjoyed Garmin Pilot slightly more and decided to make it my primary app. I can't put my finger on exactly what I liked the best, but I can say I did not like having to dismiss every traffic warning. Lots of traffic here in the Los Angeles area and I didn't like taking my eyes away from looking outside to dismiss the warning screen. Perhaps there's a setting that will allow that to time out, I didn't look.

I soon found as I was planning numerous flights for a 2000+ mile VFR cross country, that I missed the Windows web access on a desktop big screen to do the planning. Garmin Pilot seems like a mix match of various products and apps and does not have the robust Windows web map and planning capability. Fltplan.com is clunky and once you create a plan you get a static map with your route.

ForeFlight, on the other hand, allows the Windows web access and for you to interact with the map and access other data and information through the windows web access planning process.

So for now, I'm back to FF with a subscription to both.

@FPK1, I also find the ForeFlight Web version a very useful complement to ForeFlight Mobile. Ultimately I'd like to see the Web version have all the functionality of the Mobile version (for the new Apple chips in Macs this is already pretty much the case).
Thanks for the feedback,
Wayne