Pilot Products

ForeFlight Mobile version 8 is much more than a software update. It demonstrates the pioneering aviation software company’s comprehensive and ongoing efforts to rethink aeronautical charts, simplify international flying, and coordinate flight planning—whether it’s being done on a desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone.

“We are raising the bar for aeronautical maps,” said Tyson Weihs, ForeFlight cofounder and CEO, whose firm spent two years developing the mapping technology at the heart of the new release. “We are transforming the way maps are designed and delivered.”

ForeFlight 8 opens with a Google Earth-like map of the world that shows international borders, terrain features, and aeronautical information in ever-increasing detail as the user zooms in on a region. Maps can be customized to show the information the user finds most relevant. That can include the kind of terrain shading and detail found on VFR sectionals, bare-bones navigational information found on IFR charts, or a hybrid of both.

“The paradigm of distinct VFR sectional or IFR en route charts will start to fade away,” Weihs said. “The new map-making paradigm lets pilots change styles, filter chart elements, add custom data, and tailor the map presentation to suit their preferences.”

Behind the scenes, ForeFlight links the air traffic control agencies throughout North America so that a pilot can file cross-border flight plans between the United States, Canada, the Bahamas, Mexico, and most of the Caribbean. Eventually, the company plans to expand those capabilities around the world.

The FAA is changing the way it manages aviation data, and the agency charges private companies such as ForeFlight for access to it. Weihs said ForeFlight is ready for “the whole pipeline to change” to an all-digital format in which FAA collects and shares data with private firms, and those firms modify and distribute updated charts and procedures electronically.

Such a system could dramatically reduce costs, improve efficiency, and reduce update cycles from months or weeks to days or even hours. “There could be an order-of-magnitude reduction in the cost of producing aeronautical charts,” Weihs said, “and a tremendous reduction in the time it takes to get new information to pilots.”

ForeFlight 8 maps look and act the same on a desktop computer as they do on a tablet or smartphone, and the new web version allows users to sync flight plans made on one platform to another.

ForeFlight’s electronic logbook in version 8 enables remote signatures for logbook entries, sharing entries between pilots, and social media sharing. About one-third of ForeFlight users have adopted the company’s electronic logbook, and Weihs expects that percentage to rise as new features are added.

In the near future, ForeFlight plans to add automated insurance and FAA 8710 forms that will reduce pilot paperwork and avoid errors. Other anticipated upgrades include more timely alerts and airborne updates to graphical TFRs, and new Stratus features such as a “sticky” attitude and heading reference system that remembers its precise orientation in the airplane so that pilots don’t need to recalibrate repeatedly.

Weihs said the new maps in ForeFlight 8 will seamlessly integrate taxi, departure, arrival, and approach procedures, and they’ll make it easy to display special instructions like the VFR Fiske Arrival that thousands of pilots fly on their way to EAA AirVenture each year. “Procedures are just things that should show on a map,” he said. “We’re reinventing the way pilots think about and use aeronautical charts. And we’re offering global coverage for the price of a regular subscription. That’s unprecedented.”

The price of ForeFlight subscriptions won’t change. It’s still $99 a year for Basic Plus that includes VFR and IFR charts, and $199 a year for Pro Plus designed for professional pilots.

Email [email protected]

Get organized

Sporty’s releases a flight bag system

By Alton K. Marsh

Innovation doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s taken Sporty’s 10 years to evolve its Flight Gear flight bags to this third iteration. It isn’t just a bag, it’s an entire modular system geared heavily to iPad technology used in today’s general aviation aircraft.

The system includes the $90 Captain’s Bag that holds just about everything needed for a flight with passengers, including two padded headset pouches. One of the clever tricks was to put a zipper in the lid just above the iPad pocket inside, meaning you don’t have to open the entire bag. Outside pockets mean your fuel tester no longer shares its odor with the contents of your bag. A black velvet rear wall inside the main compartment can Velcro any of the seven accessory pocket Mods available for an average of $12 each.

The next size down is the $70 iPad Bag, consisting of a headset compartment and an iPad compartment. A rubber gasket allows a charging wire to be passed from the headset compartment, with its four side pockets, to the iPad. You keep the charger with the headset, and your iPad is always at 100 percent. Cables can be kept tidy in one of the pockets. It has a split-flap pocket for that handheld radio—the antenna pokes from one side and the half-flap is tucked inside. Like the Captain’s Bag, it has a felt wall behind the headset to Velcro Sporty’s Mods inside. They can be for anything you want, sunglasses or point-and-shoot cameras. Like the Captain’s Bag, it has a rough-and-tough padded handle.

Two Flight Gear HP iPad Bi-Fold Kneeboards, one sized for the iPad Mini and another for a full-size iPad, both costing $35, present the iPad in either vertical or horizontal position using a Velcro connector. Like the bags, the right side has black velvet for attaching a Mod accessory pocket, meaning your handheld radio doesn’t have to be on the cabin floor. If you don’t want the right half of the kneeboard open, a slot in the hinge allows it to be folded under with the strap passing through it and around your knee.

PRICE: Captain’s Bag, $90; iPad Bag, $70; Kneeboards, both $35; Mod pockets, $12 average.
CONTACT: www.sportys.com

Email [email protected]