What are ForeFlight "aeronautical maps"

SkyHog

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Looking st making the switch to an iPad and running ForeFlight. I see there is an option to build your own subscription, and since I don't need the hokey stuff like W&B and logbook, I am thinking of doing the $74.99 plan. But it includes sectionals but not aeronautical maps.

What's the difference?

Also, with Avare I get georeferenced plates for free. Is there anything special included with the georeferenced plates on ForeFlight to justify the extra expense?
 
I really like the aeronautical maps. A few year old video about the introduction of them:
 
I really like the aeronautical maps. A few year old video about the introduction of them:
Wow. So it looks like with the aeronautical maps you don't need to have the georeferenced taxi diagrams then, right?
 
I really like the aeronautical maps. A few year old video about the introduction of them:

lol @ paradigm shift. Vector maps have been around longer than moving sectional images. This is like watching Apple brag about rounded corners for 5 minutes.
 
I thought the current data set for sectionals is vector based?
 
We don't use the new FF aeronautical charts.
The sectional charts are what we prefer and satisfy our needs.
 
lol @ paradigm shift. Vector maps have been around longer than moving sectional images. This is like watching Apple brag about rounded corners for 5 minutes.

FF is not claiming to have invented vector graphics. They have just intelligently integrated that as PART of their new(ish) mapping technology.

I love using the aeronautical maps and rarely use the sectionals these days.
 
I like to overlay the sectional on the aeronautical maps. And switch to just aeronautical to declutter at times. I would definitely get them.
 
I thought the current data set for sectionals is vector based?

Yeah, but it's still rendered and stored as a bitmap by the likes of ForeFlight and skyvector. Note that when it draws on the screen, it draws in boxes. Vector storage wouldn't look like that. And...the aero maps don't draw like that at all.
 
@SkyHog,

Forgive me for not knowing, but are you VFR or IFR? If you are only VFR pilot, I frankly would look at options other than FF. The georeferenced plates don't mean as much but you have to pay for them to have georeferenced taxi diagrams, which IMO are invaluable if you go anywhere but a one-runway airport.

Actually, moving to an iPad for the first time, VFR or IFR, I wouldn't be looking at FF exclusively to begin with. You've been using something so you have some idea what you like in terms of workflow. Look at the options, do the trials.
 
@SkyHog,

Forgive me for not knowing, but are you VFR or IFR? If you are only VFR pilot, I frankly would look at options other than FF. The georeferenced plates don't mean as much but you have to pay for them to have georeferenced taxi diagrams, which IMO are invaluable if you go anywhere but a one-runway airport.

Actually, moving to an iPad for the first time, VFR or IFR, I wouldn't be looking at FF exclusively to begin with. You've been using something so you have some idea what you like in terms of workflow. Look at the options, do the trials.
I am VFR but working on IR very slowly. I currently use Avare but thinking of switching to iPad because I like a lot of the features in it and I'm now an iTard anyway.

I fly out of APA which isn't too tough to taxi with, but I remember how much it sucked flying into unfamiliar, complicated runway environments without the geo-referenced taxi diagrams (which are free on Avare) so I don't want to go back to not having them.

Looks like ForeFlight does a lot of what I need with the aeronautical maps since it has taxiways indicated upon zoom.

So why would you recommend against ForeFlight? It looks like a weaker version of Avare with a prettier interface from what I can see so far...
 
ForeFlight serves all my needs very well - I am satisfied, full stop.

Now that I better understand it, I like the way I can plan a flight on FF, and it can automatically file my IFR flight plan and, when I get into the plane, automatically upload it to the Avidyne IFD440. Slick.

There is, honestly, very little it doesn't do, and I am learning more as I go.
 
You may want to check out flt plan go. Same price as Avare. Geo-ref plates and airport diagrams. Accepts ADS-B data in from many devices.
It has some oddities but overall pretty good value.

Recommend against ForeFlight? Price, stability

Advantage of ForeFlight over flt plan go? Height above ground stuff.
 
I like to overlay the sectional on the aeronautical maps. And switch to just aeronautical to declutter at times. I would definitely get them.
I do the same. Usually have both selected and deselect one or the other to declutter depending on what I want to see at the time.
 
Another advantage to the aeronautical maps:

Unlike raster scanned VFR sectionals, the aeronautical maps are scalable. As you zoom in and out, the text size stays the same, and they auto-declutter or add detail.

The VFR sectionals become unreadable as you zoom out and the text becomes tiny.
 
Another advantage to the aeronautical maps:

Unlike raster scanned VFR sectionals, the aeronautical maps are scalable. As you zoom in and out, the text size stays the same, and they auto-declutter or add detail.

The VFR sectionals become unreadable as you zoom out and the text becomes tiny.

Not to mention the aeronautical maps also keep the print upright.
 
I am VFR but working on IR very slowly. I currently use Avare but thinking of switching to iPad because I like a lot of the features in it and I'm now an iTard anyway.

I fly out of APA which isn't too tough to taxi with, but I remember how much it sucked flying into unfamiliar, complicated runway environments without the geo-referenced taxi diagrams (which are free on Avare) so I don't want to go back to not having them.

Looks like ForeFlight does a lot of what I need with the aeronautical maps since it has taxiways indicated upon zoom.

So why would you recommend against ForeFlight? It looks like a weaker version of Avare with a prettier interface from what I can see so far...
I don't really recommend against it. Heck, I've been using it for over 7 years. (And I could take issue on which is "weaker" - I wouldn't think of using Avare as my primary IFR backup, although I haven't used it in the past year). But I think for ForeFlight's business choice to require Pro for geo-referenced taxi diagrams is bad for VFR pilots. I stay with ForeFlight primarily for its IFR capabilities and, if I were to stop flying IFR, would be looking for something with a FF Basic price point but with georeferenced taxi diagrams. Actually, if taxi diagrams are a VFR priority, the "best of breed" to me is FlyQ. They picked up diagrams from the defunct FlightGuide folks so have excellent taxi diagrams for airports the FAA doesn't publish. It's also pretty easy to use. I became pretty familiar with it because a student wanted to use it.

BTW, ask people who don't regularly fly in and out of APA whether it's difficult or not :)
 
Recommend against ForeFlight? Price, stability .

Stability? Explain. I've been using ForeFlight for a long time and have never experienced ability problems.

They also seem to be a pretty stable company, and quick to fix problems.

They have the largest base of users of all EFBs.

I agree that they are not the cheapest, but so far, to me, they are still a good value.
 
Stability? Explain. I've been using ForeFlight for a long time and have never experienced ability problems.

They also seem to be a pretty stable company, and quick to fix problems.

They have the largest base of users of all EFBs.

I agree that they are not the cheapest, but so far, to me, they are still a good value.
I've had many FF crashes.
 
I have been using Foreflight for about 7 years as well. At Oshkosh I tested (for pretty much the first time) some of the other options. Some of them had features that I didn't even know I was missing, and now mildly irritate me that Foreflight doesn't have. Some things were seemingly so obvious.

For example:
In Foreflight, go direct to an airport (or enter a flight plan, or whatever). Now, go pull up approach charts for your destination airport. Many ways to do it, but all of them take at least several taps, as you have to tell Foreflight which airport you want to bring up approach charts for. But wait a minute, Foreflight knows where you're going, since you just entered "direct-to" that airport. So why the extra steps? It would be great to, for example, tap "plates" and have it automatically bring up all the approaches for that airport.

At least one of the other EFB options does this, and now I notice it every time I use Foreflight! :)

(Better yet, have it filter the approach plates depending on the equipment you have on board, which with the ICAO flight plan format, it also knows enough detail to do. I don't need it to even show me the RNAV (RNP) approaches. Or the NDB's in most planes I fly.)
 
I have been using Foreflight for about 7 years as well. At Oshkosh I tested (for pretty much the first time) some of the other options. Some of them had features that I didn't even know I was missing, and now mildly irritate me that Foreflight doesn't have. Some things were seemingly so obvious.
***
At least one of the other EFB options does this, and now I notice it every time I use Foreflight! :)
As a self-proclaimed "EFB Geek" who can't resist CFI freebies and discounts, I have used or am running 4 iOS apps and an equal number of Android ones (plus I have the Windows version of FltPlan Go! on my laptop for jollies). As far as I can tell, none of them is perfect; the best we can do for regular use is find the one that fits our mission best and learn to be comfortable and proficient with it. After 7 years, I find my self saying "why doesn't XXX do this?" far more than "why doesn't FF do this?" (That said, my FF subscription runs out next February and I am, for the first time, seriously going to try another app I like very much - anyone interested in a used Stratus 2?)
 
In Foreflight, go direct to an airport (or enter a flight plan, or whatever). Now, go pull up approach charts for your destination airport. Many ways to do it, but all of them take at least several taps, as you have to tell Foreflight which airport you want to bring up approach charts for.

I never go to the Plates tab anymore. Just keep the route (or drop it down with the FPL button) up on top, tap the airport, and Show Plate. It also works for taxi at the beginning of the flight plan to overlay the taxi diagram if you like that overlaid...

If you're a fan of "Direct To" to an airport, it works with that also, since your flight plan will be wiped and you'll have two waypoints, a lat/long waypoint where you hit Direct To, and the airport. Just tap the airport bubble in the flight plan, and Show Plate... done.

To go "Direct To" an airport and overlay the plate on whatever chart you're looking at is five fairly obvious taps if you go this route, and no page switching -- which really slows Foreflight down badly on older devices.

Airport tap, Direct To. [If Flight Plan not visible, tap FPL.] Tap Airport identifier/waypoint bubble in flight plan, Show Plate, pick the plate.

Once you have anything overlaid, seeing it as just a plate is easy, too... tap somewhere on the plate, and the top buttons are "Hide Plate" and "View Fullscreen"... as well as that menu lets you make a fast change of plate if the controller changes approach plans on you.

This UI variant was added in August 2013, but I still see old-timers using the Plates button... or having local plates for specific airports in folders in there, which was the fastest way to it prior to four years ago. Old habits die hard. The eyeballs get drawn to the Plates button in the UI, but it's mostly there for backward brain compatibility from the old days without overlaid plates.

Side-note: I like "Invert Plate Colors" for overlaid plates over charts, makes it easier to read for me, and I allow a little more of the underlying chart to show through with the opacity slider. Looks way better to me than a black on white plate slapped over a color chart. The reverse looks more like an opaque "HUD" like display to me.

The other cool thing you can do from there if you're planning a SID or STAR, is tap the overlaid plate and scroll to the SID or STAR. Since those aren't georeferenced at all, it'll take you straight to the Plates page with the SID or STAR loaded on it. Now you can review the SID or STAR there, and toggle between that and the map/overlaid plate, just by going back and forth between Maps and Plates.

And of course, talking about STARs... many people don't realize that even though the STARs aren't georeferenced, the ones that can be done with simple waypoints ARE coded in such a way that the same oval Airport press menu also has "Select Arrival" in it... you select the arrival and transition and foreflight will insert the transition waypoint and further waypoints into the FPL giving you the magic magenta line for those... but watch out on them... many arrivals aren't "plotable" that way, so always check the actual STAR before relying on what got inserted.
 
Screenshots of the easy way to overlay a plate.

82177511130bfa84da8ebd7172b7f195.jpg


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8fcca8bcc1a3c8fb394c4a4a3dc1b685.jpg
 
I never go to the Plates tab anymore. Just keep the route (or drop it down with the FPL button) up on top, tap the airport, and Show Plate. It also works for taxi at the beginning of the flight plan to overlay the taxi diagram if you like that overlaid...

If you're a fan of "Direct To" to an airport, it works with that also, since your flight plan will be wiped and you'll have two waypoints, a lat/long waypoint where you hit Direct To, and the airport. Just tap the airport bubble in the flight plan, and Show Plate... done.

To go "Direct To" an airport and overlay the plate on whatever chart you're looking at is five fairly obvious taps if you go this route, and no page switching -- which really slows Foreflight down badly on older devices.

Airport tap, Direct To. [If Flight Plan not visible, tap FPL.] Tap Airport identifier/waypoint bubble in flight plan, Show Plate, pick the plate.

Once you have anything overlaid, seeing it as just a plate is easy, too... tap somewhere on the plate, and the top buttons are "Hide Plate" and "View Fullscreen"... as well as that menu lets you make a fast change of plate if the controller changes approach plans on you.

This UI variant was added in August 2013, but I still see old-timers using the Plates button... or having local plates for specific airports in folders in there, which was the fastest way to it prior to four years ago. Old habits die hard. The eyeballs get drawn to the Plates button in the UI, but it's mostly there for backward brain compatibility from the old days without overlaid plates.

Side-note: I like "Invert Plate Colors" for overlaid plates over charts, makes it easier to read for me, and I allow a little more of the underlying chart to show through with the opacity slider. Looks way better to me than a black on white plate slapped over a color chart. The reverse looks more like an opaque "HUD" like display to me.

The other cool thing you can do from there if you're planning a SID or STAR, is tap the overlaid plate and scroll to the SID or STAR. Since those aren't georeferenced at all, it'll take you straight to the Plates page with the SID or STAR loaded on it. Now you can review the SID or STAR there, and toggle between that and the map/overlaid plate, just by going back and forth between Maps and Plates.

And of course, talking about STARs... many people don't realize that even though the STARs aren't georeferenced, the ones that can be done with simple waypoints ARE coded in such a way that the same oval Airport press menu also has "Select Arrival" in it... you select the arrival and transition and foreflight will insert the transition waypoint and further waypoints into the FPL giving you the magic magenta line for those... but watch out on them... many arrivals aren't "plotable" that way, so always check the actual STAR before relying on what got inserted.
Thanks for writing this up. I learned a few new tricks.
 
I've had many FF crashes.

I've heard the same from others, but in more than 2 years I've had exactly zero.

But I also never hurry to install updates of ANY software on any of my computers either.
 
I've heard the same from others, but in more than 2 years I've had exactly zero.
I suspect it depends on the hardware and maybe other programs in the background.
 
I've gone through small series of crashes over the years. One was unknown causes to me but sending the debug info requested to FF after opening a support ticket got a patch released and fixed it.

The other was definitely an incompatibility between FF and an iOS update. They had that patch out even faster.
 
I get their emails and have looked at them a lot. Never used one, but it looks like a good GPS.
They've been around for a while. Pre iOS they competed with the Garmin handhelds. The iOS, Android, Windows, and dedicated hardware versions are virtually identical. There's both good and bad to that. One of the good is, it's not a newbie. One of the bad is it kind of sits on top of phone and tablet operating systems rather than taking advantage of functionality, even basic stuff like copy and paste.

I've actually been looking at them since the pre-phone/tablet days. Did the trial a few times on various devices but never flew with it enough. So I finally decided to bit the bullet and subscribe for a year.

I'll probably be a big annoyance on their user forums :D
 
I never go to the Plates tab anymore. Just keep the route (or drop it down with the FPL button) up on top, tap the airport, and Show Plate. It also works for taxi at the beginning of the flight plan to overlay the taxi diagram if you like that overlaid...

Thanks for the tip!

Side-note: I like "Invert Plate Colors" for overlaid plates over charts, makes it easier to read for me, and I allow a little more of the underlying chart to show through with the opacity slider. Looks way better to me than a black on white plate slapped over a color chart. The reverse looks more like an opaque "HUD" like display to me.

Too bad the plates don't have an alpha channel...
 
I never go to the Plates tab anymore. Just keep the route (or drop it down with the FPL button) up on top, tap the airport, and Show Plate.

That is a great tip I hadn't known about! Tried it yesterday and of course it worked fine. Was able to teach it to my student as well. Of course, it does require you to be displaying the FPL view, which I usually don't...

I did notice that with this method, it overlays it on the map - which means there is probably a bright magenta line running right through the approach chart. To get a "clean" version requires at least two more taps. So it's not "perfect", of course "perfect" for me not necessarily being "perfect" for anybody else. Still a good tip though, thanks.

This UI variant was added in August 2013, but I still see old-timers using the Plates button... or having local plates for specific airports in folders in there, which was the fastest way to it prior to four years ago. Old habits die hard. The eyeballs get drawn to the Plates button in the UI, but it's mostly there for backward brain compatibility from the old days without overlaid plates.

Never been called an "old-timer" before, but I guess in this case it fits. :)
 
That is a great tip I hadn't known about! Tried it yesterday and of course it worked fine. Was able to teach it to my student as well. Of course, it does require you to be displaying the FPL view, which I usually don't...

I did notice that with this method, it overlays it on the map - which means there is probably a bright magenta line running right through the approach chart. To get a "clean" version requires at least two more taps. So it's not "perfect", of course "perfect" for me not necessarily being "perfect" for anybody else. Still a good tip though, thanks.



Never been called an "old-timer" before, but I guess in this case it fits. :)
Have you compared "two taps" with the process of starting with a paper en route chart, perhaps folding it to put it aside, pulling out an approach chart book, leafing through it to find the correct approach place and displaying it to be used?

I'm not sure whining about how much work it is to do two taps is the mark of an "old timer." It's more like Jay Leno's line, "How lazy are we getting?" :D
 
Have you compared "two taps" with the process of starting with a paper en route chart, perhaps folding it to put it aside, pulling out an approach chart book, leafing through it to find the correct approach place and displaying it to be used?

I'm not sure whining about how much work it is to do two taps is the mark of an "old timer." It's more like Jay Leno's line, "How lazy are we getting?" :D

No fair! :D

I actually used to have a "IFR Flight Planner" (or something like that) book with clear sleeves in it, separated into sections for departure/arrival/approach/airport diagram/alternate that I would insert the loose-leaf versions of the approach charts into for a given flight. So, actually, once in the airplane it was pretty simple to find the right chart.

But yes, your point is taken!
 
No fair! :D

I actually used to have a "IFR Flight Planner" (or something like that) book with clear sleeves in it, separated into sections for departure/arrival/approach/airport diagram/alternate that I would insert the loose-leaf versions of the approach charts into for a given flight. So, actually, once in the airplane it was pretty simple to find the right chart.

But yes, your point is taken!

I probably still have one of those around in my misc aviation stuff box. I should probably give it to a friend who still uses paper charts. Yes, it helped a lot.

302-L.jpg
 
I probably still have one of those around in my misc aviation stuff box. I should probably give it to a friend who still uses paper charts. Yes, it helped a lot.

302-L.jpg

That is exactly it. I know I got rid of mine a few years ago during a semi-regular "purge" of my office.
 
I probably still have one of those around in my misc aviation stuff box. I should probably give it to a friend who still uses paper charts. Yes, it helped a lot.

302-L.jpg

I have one of those, and I still print out plates and throw them in for the destination and alternate. Who knows when the ipad and foreflight are going to take a dump.
 
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