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Flight Planning Software

Whiskeycreek

New Member
Which flight planning software programs (civilian or military) are your favorite(s) and why? (Example - ForeFlight, Garmin, PFPS/FalconView, Rocketroute, etc.) Are there any that stood out to you as exceptionally good or bad?
 

bcal

Well-Known Member
I have used garmin and foreflight. Foreflight is king. Foreflight just gives you so much information and you can do so much with it. Even file ifr with it. It will give you suggested ifr routes, most common ifr routes that were “cleared” by atc, give you an expected change in your flight plan if atc decides to change something on your ifr flight plan during the clearance delivery read back ( mine were never really changed from what I filed) and so on. The big part is just learning how to use everything but once you figure everything out it becomes a really awesome tool.
Garmin was okay but nothing like foreflight. In my opinion
 

VMO4

Well-Known Member
I have used Foreflight and Garmin, I think for IFR flight planning etc....Foreflight is superior. As a boater, I am used to how Garmin looks and operates, and since I mostly fly in my J-3 now, low and slow, I prefer Garmin since it has hazard avoidance (towers) with the basic subscription, Foreflight only gives you that with the upgrade to Pro.
 

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
ForeFlight by a mile. Their interface with tablets is excellent and their planning tools easy to use.
 
Literally nothing beats foreflight. It's great that theres competition but Foreflight has everything you'll ever need for flight planning.
 

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
Here I thought this was going to be a JMPS discussion :) I'll be honest, I have never used foreflight or any other civilian planning tool for the rare occasion of flying from Pt A to Pt B in a mil aircraft. I also fly with paper approach plates.......?

You're welcome for that useless addition to this topic
 
Here I thought this was going to be a JMPS discussion :) I'll be honest, I have never used foreflight or any other civilian planning tool for the rare occasion of flying from Pt A to Pt B in a mil aircraft. I also fly with paper approach plates.......?

You're welcome for that useless addition to this topic
Fair enough. Honestly don't really need it for mil a/c but it is such a help in a bug smasher.
 

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
Fair enough. Honestly don't really need it for mil a/c but it is such a help in a bug smasher.

Yeah, I imagine foreflight type apps help a lot when you are doing chart heavy nav (whether that be VFR or IFR), or just want convenience in your approach plates/etc. In terms of mil flying, knew people who flew with foreflight tablets and a canopy puck, especially when I was out in Fallon......our vipers had basically nothing more than a steam gauge Cessna 152 had to work with. Then again, you could generally keep inside the SUA by sight if you knew what you were looking for. Useful at night or above the weather though.....probably more useful than my technique of dialing up various TACAN radials on the RMI down between my legs.
 

HSMPBR

Not a misfit toy
pilot
Yeah, I imagine foreflight type apps help a lot when you are doing chart heavy nav (whether that be VFR or IFR), or just want convenience in your approach plates/etc. In terms of mil flying, knew people who flew with foreflight tablets and a canopy puck, especially when I was out in Fallon......our vipers had basically nothing more than a steam gauge Cessna 152 had to work with. Then again, you could generally keep inside the SUA by sight if you knew what you were looking for. Useful at night or above the weather though.....probably more useful than my technique of dialing up various TACAN radials on the RMI down between my legs.
Is it not staggering how much in-flight navigation has improved in the last 10 years over the previous 60?
 

Griz882

Frightening children with the Griz-O-Copter!
pilot
Contributor
Here I thought this was going to be a JMPS discussion :) I'll be honest, I have never used foreflight or any other civilian planning tool for the rare occasion of flying from Pt A to Pt B in a mil aircraft. I also fly with paper approach plates.......?

You're welcome for that useless addition to this topic
Somebody had to be a downer here. Thank you.
 

MIDNJAC

is clara ship
pilot
Is it not staggering how much in-flight navigation has improved in the last 10 years over the previous 60?

For real. When I started civilian flight training just a hair under 20 years ago, we had no GPS approaches (and specific to our aircraft, no GPS at all), still shot NDBs as a requirement for the instrument practical, and our fanciest airplane had a VOR/DME based RNAV computer. Having an HSI was a game changer, especially with dual VORs. That wasn't really that long ago, but it seems like a different world, which I have mostly forgotten. You're right though, there was a real explosion of capabilities with proliferation of GPS RNAV approaches and tablets, all of which seems to have happened in the last decade or so. No joke, my first GPS approach ever, was sometime around 2017, shortly after we got RNAV in the F/A-18.
 

ChuckMK23

FERS and TSP contributor!
pilot
There are no alternatives to ForeFlight - the exception being FD Pro for you 121 guys - because its tailored to your operations.

If you have a DOD email and want Jepp charts on Foreflight - they are free of charge now thanks to a DoD/NGA deal with Boeing/Jeppsen/ForeFlight... (global!)
 
There are no alternatives to ForeFlight - the exception being FD Pro for you 121 guys - because its tailored to your operations.

If you have a DOD email and want Jepp charts on Foreflight - they are free of charge now thanks to a DoD/NGA deal with Boeing/Jeppsen/ForeFlight... (global!)
That is crazy, how would we go about getting that? I'm assuming the email on your ff account needs to be the dod email?
 
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