Garmin Pilot vs ForeFlight

RyanB

RyanB

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The age old question…

My subscription of Garmin Pilot is nearing expiration. I like it, it’s served me well and continues to do so and it’s a good bit cheaper than ForeFlight. Having used both, it seems that they’re more or less identical with ForeFlight having a few different features. What functions do you like that one has but the other doesn’t? Are there any good reasons to bone up the extra coin and change over to ForeFlight?
 
have u done the free trial period for FF? do they have one? GP is free for 30 days, I'm assuming FF has something similar. try them both for yourself and then go with the obvious choice of GP.
 
I don't think it's the obvious choice actually, based on my flight training activities. GP has been pretty rare for me to find in use in the wild.

The boeing treatment may change things over time :)
 
RyanB said:
The age old question…

My subscription of Garmin Pilot is nearing expiration. I like it, it’s served me well and continues to do so and it’s a good bit cheaper than ForeFlight. Having used both, it seems that they’re more or less identical with ForeFlight having a few different features. What functions do you like that one has but the other doesn’t? Are there any good reasons to bone up the extra coin and change over to ForeFlight?
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I have been a Foreflight user for 11 years. I've also used Pilot from time to time along with just about every other US EFB.

I can't think of a single reason to switch from Garmin Pilot if you have been using it and it does the job for you.
 
FF warns you before entering a runway, alerts you when you're on final, which runway you are aligned with, and gives you "runway remaining" when you enter a runway. Last I used GP it didn't do these things. Most of the rest of the stuff I prefer about FF is based on IFR flying. For VFR, I preferred GP.
 
On one hand, it's largely a matter of taste, as the two products have very similar basic functionality. On the other hand, there are differences... some in functionality and some in the user interface. Here's the latest episode in a series of Side-by-Side comparisons...
 
Go with whatever works for you. Right now I have F Flight for planning on the ground, but in the air I use IFly as the buttons / interface is superior. I don't think there is anything major that one has over the other.
 
WDD said:
Go with whatever works for you. Right now I have F Flight for planning on the ground, but in the air I use IFly as the buttons / interface is superior. I don't think there is anything major that one has over the other.
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Do you know of a way to transfer a flight plan from FF to iFly?
 
One thing GP has that FF doesn’t is deltas on the altitude selector pop up. FF show the results for each, but GP shows how all the others differ from the one you have chosen, in both time and fuel consumption, which I always liked.
 
Salty said:
FF warns you before entering a runway, alerts you when you're on final, which runway you are aligned with, and gives you "runway remaining" when you enter a runway. Last I used GP it didn't do these things. Most of the rest of the stuff I prefer about FF is based on IFR flying. For VFR, I preferred GP.
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You convinced me to get FF. I tend to nod off on base and knowing I was on final would be really nice.
 
Clip4 said:
You convinced me to get FF. I tend to nod off on base and knowing I was on final would be really nice.
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It confirms you are aligned with the CORRECT runway, smart *cough*
 
Foreflight is a brilliant product. Their CS is astoundingly good.

That said, I think they've gone about as far as they can for piston GA. It seems like most of the enhancements are now geared towards bizjets.
 
LesGawlik said:
Foreflight is a brilliant product. Their CS is astoundingly good.

That said, I think they've gone about as far as they can for piston GA. It seems like most of the enhancements are now geared towards bizjets.
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But they have chosen to offer it exclusively on a sucky platform that isn’t daylight readable and that overheats in the cockpit. Makes no sense. If I could run it on a rugged 1100 nit Android tablet I wouldn’t look for anything else.
 
Half Fast said:
But they have chosen to offer it exclusively on a sucky platform that isn’t daylight readable and that overheats in the cockpit. Makes no sense. If I could run it on a rugged 1100 nit Android tablet I wouldn’t look for anything else.
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Ditto
 
Half Fast said:
Do you know of a way to transfer a flight plan from FF to iFly?
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No. I think one of the reasons iFly works exactly the same way and solidly on multiple platforms is that it sits on top of the operating system rather than being integrated into it. The downside is the lack of some simple OS functions like basic copy/paste. (Copy from the Foreflight (or SkyVector or FlyQ or whatever text box and paste into iFly). Last I heard, they were working on that.
 
I prefer GP. It seems to take less clicks to get to the information I need vs FF. Both are great, but my money goes to GP. When I have a student with FF and we are both trying to pull up the same information GP almost always gets the job done quicker. Maybe a few less features, but I also like less clutter.
 
One feature about FF I like is you can setup the landing pattern for the destination airport such as 45, midfield, straight in, etc. It will show on the moving map GPS the pattern. Great feature to make sure you are where expected to be. As with most guidance devices like the compass, VOR and GPS it is a great aid to supplement your visual navigation.
 
Half Fast said:
But they have chosen to offer it exclusively on a sucky platform that isn’t daylight readable and that overheats in the cockpit. Makes no sense. If I could run it on a rugged 1100 nit Android tablet I wouldn’t look for anything else.
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One of the things they chose was the only platform available and stayed with a platform where they didn't have to account for individual hardware manufacturers tweaking the underlying system. I bought an iPad and Foreflight because I got tired waiting for an Android tablet.

Yeah, I wish they were in Android too. But I accept that unless Android overcomes the Apple headstart in the EFB world, ain't gonna happen. And being agnostic, it doesn't matter to me.

(BTW, my iPad has never overheated. My Android phone has.)
 
I have used FF and GP, but my favorite is Avare. True, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it is simple and crisp. It is just a map and your plane icon, and it doesn't talk to you. FF is packed with great features but you need to know how to use it. I fly with students who struggle with FF, sometimes to the point of it becoming a hazard during flight. I have had to tell students to put away the tablet and fly the plane. I found GP to be too slow (in Android) so I gave up on that. Just my two cents.
 
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Half Fast said:
But they have chosen to offer it exclusively on a sucky platform that isn’t daylight readable and that overheats in the cockpit. Makes no sense. If I could run it on a rugged 1100 nit Android tablet I wouldn’t look for anything else.
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You could also delay the purchase of an LED landing light by flipping that tablet around to face forward.
 
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Half Fast said:
But they have chosen to offer it exclusively on a sucky platform that isn’t daylight readable and that overheats in the cockpit. Makes no sense. If I could run it on a rugged 1100 nit Android tablet I wouldn’t look for anything else.
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Mine hasn’t overheated in my 500 hours
 
Mine has overheated a couple times when the sun was beating down on it through the windshield. I throw my static shade on it and in a few seconds it’s fine.
 
I never had a problem with overheating until last fall, and then it happened several times. I had it shaded from direct sun, but the cockpit was quite hot after the plane had sat in the sun for a while.
 
GP runs on Android. FF doesn't. As I have an Android phone and tablet, there is no choice.
 
How about FBO reviews? I haven't used FF beyond the free trial, but I always wished GP had that feature; even just the reviews from airnav would be better than nothing. It would be helpful when I need to pick an airport for my frequent emergency landings....
 
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I have both FF and GP. I also have a Garmin panel so I really wanted to use Garmin Pilot. I've tried them both and I agree with another post that Garmin Pilot seems to be a little more efficient to get to the information you need.

I'm VFR only and often do my planning on my Windows desktop and only FF includes a somewhat robust web browser interface for that... GP has FltPlan.com but it is more suited for IFR or professional Pilots I think.

If you have a Garmin panel and use FF, you still have to buy Garmin pilot if you want to do electronic updates.

Since I'm actually an Android user, I had to buy an iPad just to test FF and GP, and at this point I'm sticking with FF.
 
The one thing I like about foreflight, and this may seem silly and ridiculous - is the functionality to view and make bookmarks in the Chart Supplement. My home airport has a ton of Visual procedures that are only published in the chart supplement and it is super helpful and quick to find them in Foreflight with bookmarks, especially considering that it's a 600 page document. Foreflight also updates the chart supplement easily and automatically. With that said, Foreflight's lack of android support is annoying. I don't want to be locked into buying overpriced apple devices forever, even if they are slightly more user friendly than most android devices. So, I have to use a separate app for the Chart Supplement if I use GP. GP does allow you to view the chart supplement, but it's not as intuitive to navigate to from the moving map and doesn't allow bookmarks to be made within the document afaik.

The reason this matters to me: picture a 400 ops/day GA airport with 15 different visual arrivals and departures only published in the chart supplement. You call in about 7-8 miles out like usual and get some oddball procedure that makes no sense for your direction of flight, but they need you to do it to accommodate traffic. It becomes very important to be able to find and reference these charts quickly. You could memorize the procedures but they have a fun habit of changing things on them pretty reglarly.

If I get figure out a way to display chart supplements on the G3X directly that would just be the dream.
 
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FPK1 said:
I have both FF and GP. I also have a Garmin panel so I really wanted to use Garmin Pilot. I've tried them both and I agree with another post that Garmin Pilot seems to be a little more efficient to get to the information you need.

I'm VFR only and often do my planning on my Windows desktop and only FF includes a somewhat robust web browser interface for that... GP has FltPlan.com but it is more suited for IFR or professional Pilots I think.

If you have a Garmin panel and use FF, you still have to buy Garmin pilot if you want to do electronic updates.

Since I'm actually an Android user, I had to buy an iPad just to test FF and GP, and at this point I'm sticking with FF.
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You can do all the updating from GP without a subscription.
 
RonP said:
One feature about FF I like is you can setup the landing pattern for the destination airport such as 45, midfield, straight in, etc. It will show on the moving map GPS the pattern. Great feature to make sure you are where expected to be. As with most guidance devices like the compass, VOR and GPS it is a great aid to supplement your visual navigation.
Click to expand...

With FFlight basic?
 
(Still learning how to use more of the features in FF) I've had the iPad overheat issue twice - both times with my passenger holding it on his / her lap, sun shining in, enclosed in an Otterbox case. A significant issue IMHO. Not sure what's a good solution - case with fans ? No case?
 
Foreflight has long left VFR pilots behind. If you fly IFR or commercial and pay for the upper tier package its a great tool.

But for VFR all the EFBs are the same product.

They all have a free 30 day trial, and they all do the same basic VFR planning/moving map etc.
 
I have GP, like it.

Question, Is there a way to update my GPS-175 through my IPad GP app via Bluetooth? Just say it mentioned(maybe above), never heard of such.

I ask, because sometimes trouble with card.
 
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