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ForeFlight (merged thread)

Peter, I believe you are jumping back and forth between tools too much because you think other tools have features that ForeFlight does not have.

To download charts for a specific flight, simply use the Pack option. All charts you have not yet downloaded (because of your regional download settings) will be downloaded for that flight.

You can generate Flight Binders out of a planned route from the Flights or Maps tab. The Import feature in the Plates view allows you to generate Flight Binders from the map, or from previously planned flights.

After setting up the aircraft once correctly, you will get proper Eurocontrol valid routes using the Route Advisor. Options to adjust the constraints are similar to other tools.
As an example, the ForeFlight Route Advisor tries to find an IFR pickup point for a Z plan as close to your departure airport as possible and creates a Eurocontrol valid route from that point. Sometimes, that results in an IFR pickup point in, or above a CTR. Formally the point is correct and the route is valid, but in practice, it will be difficult to fly this route. In the constraints, you can define your own desired pick-up waypoint, and the ForeFlight Route Advisor will generate a corresponding route.

EDON, Germany

Wolfgang_O wrote:

As an example, the ForeFlight Route Advisor tries to find an IFR pickup point for a Z plan as close to your departure airport as possible and creates a Eurocontrol valid route from that point. Sometimes, that results in an IFR pickup point in, or above a CTR. Formally the point is correct and the route is valid, but in practice, it will be difficult to fly this route. In the constraints, you can define your own desired pick-up waypoint, and the ForeFlight Route Advisor will generate a corresponding route.

Correct. My experience is that the IFR pickup point is “too close” in that the altitude is too high for the aircraft climb performance and subsequently generates a “Cruise lower, short route” error message in the Maps Edit window. I’ve written the support team on this because the route advisor shouldn’t be proposing routes that generate errors in the Map window.

LSZK, Switzerland

There is a great deal of “philosophy” involved here; what nowadays is called a “paradigm”

There is also the application paradigm, and there is the IOS paradigm And I am new to both of these.

I can see that “the right way” to use FF is to generate the route in FF and then it all hangs together nicely. But a lot of the time, especially in the broken UK airspace system, one has a need to drop in a route which comes from elsewhere. These usually won’t come from the Autorouter (although they always could, as a hack). This can usually be entered manually each time, or there ought to be a way to drag/drop it in.

I also have a personal preference to plan on a PC because that is the “maximum productivity” tool for what I do all day. The Ipad lives in a box which I take to the plane when I go flying and it doesn’t get used for anything in between (apart from getting recharged at home). There is a browser version of FF.

There were posts on the route generator producing routes which show errors, further back.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

I can see that “the right way” to use FF is to generate the route in FF and then it all hangs together nicely.

I generate routes and file in Autorouter, get a PDF briefing by Telegram, open that PDF on the iPad and by clicking on “Foreflight” on page 1, I load the route to Foreflight.

Peter wrote:

How do people download charts, and organise their downloaded charts?

I just download all charts for all Europe (More/Downloads) when I’m around fast/non-metered WiFi, and have them permanently on the iPad. To display a chart, I:

  1. In the maps view, load the SID/STAR/APP procedure into Foreflight (actually, this happens automatically when I load them into my Garmin GTN through Flight Stream bluetooth connection).
  2. In the maps view, in the FPL, tap the procedure.
  3. tap “show plate”
  4. If it requests a disambiguation (it usually doesn’t), choose the right plate.
  5. I have my plate superimposed on the map

For airport plates, tap the airport in the FPL, and similarly tap “show plate”. If I need anything else, I:

  1. (preferably before getting any direct, so that departure and destination airport are in the Maps FPL) in the charts view, tap “import”
  2. “from maps”
  3. Now, you have a view quite similar in its broad strokes to the Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck (IFR), where you can choose charts that make sense for the departure airport (airport charts and SIDs) and charts that make sense for the arrival airport (STAR, APP, transitions, etc and airport charts).
ELLX

New Foreflight announcement:
Per-leg altitude planning in profile view



LSZK, Switzerland

Can one paste in a Eurocontrol route with all the various levels, and have it display it accordingly?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Can one paste in a Eurocontrol route with all the various levels, and have it display it accordingly?

Yes. Share flight to maps and then open Maps→FPL→Profile

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

Yes. Share flight to maps and then open Maps→FPL→Profile

Current FF version and at minimum a Pro subscription, to be precise.

Germany

Wolfgang_O wrote:

To download charts for a specific flight, simply use the Pack option. All charts you have not yet downloaded (because of your regional download settings) will be downloaded for that flight.
You can generate Flight Binders out of a planned route from the Flights or Maps tab. The Import feature in the Plates view allows you to generate Flight Binders from the map, or from previously planned flights.

When I tried FF, things going sometimes to binders and sometimes to packs was driving me nuts.
In SD you download stuff and then it’s just there, whether you access it from the database or from the airport/airspace is irrelevant.
I’m sure you get used to it eventually, but it sure is not intuitive.

ESMK, Sweden

It’s the same in ForeFlight. The selected regions and chart types are always on the iPad. But if someone has a low storage tablet, they can choose not to do that and instead use the “pack” button, so it just downloads anything related to a flight. If all charts are already on the iPad, this button just updates the weather, Notams and fuel prices.

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