Josh_Tahmasebi_ForeFlight wrote:
More on that soon :)
A vertical path indicator („vertical track line“) on the profile would be nice.
Are there any people here who use FF for UK VFR ?
I won’t change my existing setup (a custom setup running the 1:500k UK CAA charts) unless I can get an autorouting solution (a backup for the Autorouter) and that means FF (since Garmin Pilot uses the AR API).
How good is the airspace depiction, and does it dynamically declutter airspace according to your flight altitude, with airspace warnings via audio (bluetooth headset)?
Is there a “side view” so if heading towards a piece of CAS whose base is say 2000ft, and you start a descent, does it show your descent trajectory?
Does it save the GPS track to GPX or some such?
yes, airspace depiction not as great as easyVFR but I plan the route so like to think I know where the threats are, you can filter airspace by setting an altitude filtre, I think so at higher levels of subscription, dunno
Does FF show decluttered airspace reliably?
Does it do a “lateral projection” so if you are descending to below CAS ahead, you can see whether you will get under it in time?
Hi Peter,
ForeFlight has multiple methods to declutter airspace. As @RobertL18C mentioned, you can manually set an altitude filter in Airspace settings, as well as use Airspace Highlighting to have it automatically highlight airspace you are expected to pass through based on planning. When in Flight, Airspace Highlighting will take into account your current altitude and adjust dynamically if GPS and Altitude information are available.
Links:
We do have a profile view which is part of the Pro Plus subscription. Here you can see your relative position to your planned route or current track. You can see airspace and terrain information in this view. We do not currently support changes in altitude, but we are working on adding support currently.
Link: https://foreflight.com/support/video-library/watch/?v=route-line-in-profile-view
Hope this helps Peter. You can always reach out to our support team if you need more details by emailing [email protected]
Happy New Year,
Josh
Thank you Josh.
I took a look at your pricing plans.
I’d like to observe that FF Plus at $200 is 2x the price of Skydemon which does the profile view showing CAS. Off hand I don’t know whether EasyVFR does it too (@dublinpilot will know) but it is also a lot cheaper than FF. This will dramatically slow down the adoption of FF in Europe (which is mostly VFR-only). Skydemon’s response to any apparent competitor has always been to pack the product with another 100 features; they started when MFDVFR looked like it would wipe them out and they’ve never stopped. IMHO the product is too complex for most to understand and use effectively, but the feature list is what sells.
I also observe that now FF offers autorouting only in the $300 version. This wasn’t the case when I was trying out the trial; it was available in the $99 version then. This will very much slow down adoption of FF in Europe, because $300 is up with the Rocketroute pricing, and their clientele is already mostly TP and jets.
I was going to spend some money on an Ipad Mini but not at $300/year. Not while the Autorouter is still out there.
I also observe that now FF offers autorouting only in the $300 version. This wasn’t the case when I was trying out the trial; it was available in the $99 version then.
This is not completely correct. You´ll get an autoroute function with the ProPlus version at 199$. Still no bargain, arguably, but it is good enough for my purposes. The more expensive version will get you optimized autorouting, which apparently takes into consideration the current wind, aircraft performance etc.
Today I had a look at the DFS Visual 500 add-on visual charts. I´m not a friend of too many expensive add-ons (I have SkyDemon for VFR purposes), but these charts seem to be really good, similar to the ICAO-charts I started using many years ago. The coverage is getting better, but UK is not yet included I think.
The more expensive version will get you optimized autorouting, which apparently takes into consideration the current wind, aircraft performance etc.
I use it and unfortunately FF is still far away from being able to produce optimal route in any sense. I can beat it manually on any day any route in Europe. And of course AR beats it as well. I reported several routing bugs, got promises on fixing but nothing happened.
Interesting… did a few dozen 500-1000 NM flights recently and never had a problem (max overhead was around 8%).
I think FF is the best deal in aviation. 300 bucks is like, what, one hour of flying? And you can do more than an entire office of airline dispatchers, within seconds, at your fingertips.
This will very much slow down adoption of FF in Europe, because $300 is up with the Rocketroute pricing, and their clientele is already mostly TP and jets.
Slow adoption? Everyone left and right doing serious flying has switched to Foreflight years ago. There are some Garmin Pilot outliers (mostly for proprietary features in combination with Garmin avionics) but it’s maybe 1 out of 10 pilots I know.
