Yes; a lot of IFR-only flyers have gone paperless, but it’s obviously risky. Every modern tablet will shut down if it gets hot enough, sunlight, altitude, etc.
I also don’t like touch screens. They produce dumbed-down interfaces with minimal functionality. It’s OK for a moving map product but for planning? Too painful. I keep the tablet in the “flying box”. It gets used only for flying tasks.
But that is not important; I am after functionality: good depiction of UK airspace (because of the aggressive busts policy, there is really zero margin for error; ATC must report everything) and good Eurocontrol autorouting with the right config options. It wasn’t working last time I used it.
As JeppFD is stopping, I took the jump to FF, albeit that I am/was an avid SkyDemon user.
I did the free 30day trial. When deciding to buy, I had some initial ordering problems, but FF was helpful and flexible. I bought the ProPlus subscription, which is a downgrade from the trial, mainly on the performance definition of my Seneca.
I am actually quite happy with FF. Most items are well integrated. Flight plan filing works well. Weather, charts and maps are easily accessible. Traffic with my PilotAware as well. It also works outside Europe (good for dreaming). Jeppesen charts are very well integrated and I assume that buyng new regions is more easy with FF then with the Jeppesen customer service people.
The web application albeit more limited in functionality works OK for planning at home in front of your PC.
The airport overview is more easy and more powerful then SkyDemon.
Synching works better than SkyDemon: it just happens in the background as long as you have internet.
Audio output via the headphone jack to my airplane’s audiosystem works well.
Downsides:
I am now more convinced that FF is committed to Europe and I expect further improvements along the way. FF is not (yet) the perfect merger of JeppFD, SkyDemon and Autorouter but it is probably the best of four.
Niner_Mike wrote:
The silly W&B thing as mentioned before, but in the ProPlus plan it disappears altogether on the “Flights” screen
Running the Perf Plus subscription, The W&B things is still silly because the perf part of the flight tab verifies you don’t go overweight and manage fuel into the limit. but weight and balance has to ge in the M&B tab – that you still have to fill manually ( I mean not only the loading data, but also enveloppe and posts). And there is no reletion between the planes in the “plane” tab, and the planes in the M&B tab.
Beside this, the performances checks are nicely done for most of the planes, and has the advantages to give Vref and Vr that relates with your current weight, also I suppose everyone uses a fixed speed for these, that relates with the MTOW..
Niner_Mike wrote:
I am now more convinced that FF is committed to Europe and I expect further improvements along the way.
(sigh) it’s not, without Android support.
Niner_Mike wrote:
FF is not (yet) the perfect merger of JeppFD, SkyDemon and Autorouter but it is probably the best of four.
Again, disagree in terms of functionality. If you want everything in one app AND you have to have Jepp, then may be.
For people like me (who just like Peter does most if not all planning at home with a monitor and a keybord/mouse),
SD (with xAA plates) + AR will be there for a long time.
In the UK and it’s infringement policy you HAVE to have SD if you fly VFR or (at least sometimes) IFR OCAS.
And if you do have SD and perform all the planning in advance (with better routing in the AR), then what is the point?
Yes, it is a fantastic tool for the US! Especially with all other great featers like weather and D-ATIS and on-line FP clearance.
@greg_mp correct. that was my experience when running the demo trial too. I think I should upgrade my subscription
There are nice feature also in the perf plus sub, the taxi routing is great but mostly usefull for jet users, as taxi gets tricky only on giant airport with $$$ fees, that most of us won’t pay.
I have to say I missed it when arriving at EDDM, absolutely not aware of these blue/orange taxi lines you can only see from a 737 post when you vacate. Again tou get tricked only once when you didn’t do your homework the evening before, but still nice to have.
Peter wrote:
Yes; a lot of IFR-only flyers have gone paperless, but it’s obviously risky. Every modern tablet will shut down if it gets hot enough, sunlight, altitude, etc.
Some airports have 50 pages worth of procedures… destinations, (enroute) alternates will quickly add up to several hundred pages.
You print that for every trip?
Don’t fly to those often but 50 plates is only 12.5 sheets of paper.
172driver wrote:
Hey Josh, here’s a suggestion for you!
Josh (and his team) got many good suggestions here (and I guess even more through direct correspondence with users) but his responses here are something like:
a) Good idea, it’s forwarded to development team for analysis
b) Hi guys, I haven’t been here for a while but I see many valuable suggestions
Both types of answers are worth nothing and I haven’t seen any of these valid suggestions implemented. I know that features (even useless in real life flying) sell the product but the voice of real pilots should be sometimes taken into account.
I’m FF user for (more than) few years, I have Performance Plus subscription but I’m not impressed with useful features development. Seriously, who needs 3D simulation of planned flight? At the same time weather forecasts included in flight briefing (at least for Europe) are below level of current weather products, to put this mildly. Europe IFR routing suffers from serious bugs. There are few more things to be fixed or added but I’m repeating myself.
After trying out FF, I’m now leaning towards staying with Skydemon and not renewing my Jepp subscription.
Having to pay an additional €225/year (including VAT) for a product that doesn’t offer me anything above SD+Autorouter except the ability to display Jepp plates isn’t appealing.
Dropping SD is not an option as it is much better for VFR and half my flying is VFR. Also, the Swedish VFR airfield manual is available as an add-on to SD and most of my pilot buddies use SD. Sure, the FF route charting looks better than that in SD, but looks aren’t everything.
AIP plates which you get georeferenced for free in SD are a pain to use in flight, but they are useable. It’s very unusual that I have to make a flight to an unfamiliar destination with short notice so I can take the additional preparation time the AIP plates require. (Computing MDA/DA, visibility minima etc.)
