ForeFlight version 8 has been released.

Don Quixote said:
Well of course the aero maps are driven by data and not scans of paper charts. This does not say how they got the data. You're still guessing.

Seeing that you're guessing, I'm also going to guess. These vector maps are worldwide from a variety of sources. I'm sure they have imaging processing software to aid them in capturing the vector outlines but am also quite sure but guessing that there are humans guiding the process and then other humans involved in QC. They're not going to have a process grind through multiple sources of different data from multiple agencies world wide, and then have it just automatically publish the databases to their users. What if there is a mistake?

Not trying to pick on you just saying don't assume there is not a lot of work that was done and a lot of work that is ongoing to support this new feature. It is a great new feature. I am prepared to pay for it.

It has a few shortcomings... For example airspace regions should have the altitude available, like the B floor and ceilings. I'm sure they will fix that.
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Let me chime in about vector maps, aviation maps in general, and aviation maps from all over the world. My qualifications? More than one degree in CS and previously employed by Boeing then Jeppesen, and 3 years as a consultant to FAA/ATC. Don Quixote, does that satisfy you?

Most, if not all, CAA's (the generic name for government aviation division for a country, e.g. FAA in the US) publishes not printed maps, but digital versions of everything. Most of the time these are vector maps. The technology is very similar to EPS where scaling is a trivial operation.

Not sure how FF or WingX handle import of this data, but Jeppesen takes the digital files, hand-verifies them (yes, there are people who examine every single item in the digital file for QC) then imports them into the JAD - the Jeppesen Aviation Database. From the JAD, various subsets are used for various aviation products. The delivery media is irrelevant. The type of subset drives the price tag. What GA pays is substantially less than what a major airline or government organization pays. As a GA pilot, I don't need the entire world (altho when I was going to Oz, I called over to the mapping office and asked for the Sidney approach charts eventho I was flying in the back of a 747) for my cherokee. But United and Delta and non-US carriers do need this type of mapping, hence the much higher price.
 
I used Aerovie for a while and really liked the vertical weather profile for the planned route, particularly the display of cloud layers. I however went back to iFly, because I overall preferred it for its ease of use.

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Well, now that I am missing the vertical weather profile view, as well as some other features, like the display of Skew-T diagrams, I am wondering what I should do.

I would prefer to not use two different apps and thought that Foreflight might be the all-in-one solution I need. In the demo version, the vertical view is however disabled and the weather section mainly shows the images it apparently downloaded from aviationweather.gov.

Does Foreflight's vertical view include weather information and individual cloud layers? What about Skew-T?
 
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I'm surprised foreflight hasn't introduced skew-t's given that Scott D has been with them over a year now. Perhaps they've concluded the product is too arcane for their user base / interface...
 
The new charts are being touted as a replacement for sectionals. The ads, articles and videos about them tend to show them that way. But, as I found when I got a short demo subscription for a xc flight, they can be overlayed onto the sectionals and en route charts.

I prefer sectionals to the stand-alone globals but found the combination of the two to be an interesting enhancement. The background of the familiar sectionals with airspace, relevant airways, etc highlighted (sorry I didn't take a screenshot). Still on the fence whether it's worth it to me, though.
 
I thought I'd enjoy the decluttered look of the vector maps, but without altitude labels on bravo shelves, I end up reverting to the sectional.
 
GeorgeC said:
I thought I'd enjoy the decluttered look of the vector maps, but without altitude labels on bravo shelves, I end up reverting to the sectional.
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Tap in the sector your interested in and the altitudes pop up
 
Sam D said:
I'm surprised foreflight hasn't introduced skew-t's given that Scott D has been with them over a year now. Perhaps they've concluded the product is too arcane for their user base / interface...
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I have to admit that I was a little bit disappointed, when I was playing around with the latest (demo)version of Foreflight.

Sure, it appears very mature, polished and seems to be a great EFB.
I can't even say what exactly I was expecting, but somehow assumed that particularly the weather features would blow the competition way out of the water. Other than that Foreflight provides easy access to the weather charts, which are also published on aviationweather.gov, I do however not see much of an advantage of Foreflight over other apps.

I really wish there would be an app, which offers great flight planning, as well as and weather features. Especially during icing season, I would find it very usefully to have a graphical display of the expected cloud layers and their thickness, with the possibility to also open Skew-T diagrams for a more detailed look at the underlying data.
 
GeorgeC said:
I thought I'd enjoy the decluttered look of the vector maps, but without altitude labels on bravo shelves, I end up reverting to the sectional.
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Looks like that's fixed in 8.2.
 
I got an altitude alert at 500ft agl on approach yesterday. Was a bit surprised as that was the first time, FF has done that. Got up this morning to an email from FF about the new feature, as well as several others.
 
Seems the switch to remove class E airspace from the aero map is broken. Anyone else have that issue?
 
That switch turns on the class E surface areas for me.
 
Looks like they just made an update that fixed my issue. All of the class E transitions were plotted to look like class D (dotted blue line). Fixed now!

Those of you that haven't noticed the airspace ceiling/floor figures in this latest release, check them out. Big improvement.
 
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