Got my first ever Pooleys!

[tiggermoth]

I got my first ever Pooleys delivered on Thursday. I'm very impressed with all the information in it. Even my wife took an interest!

I've had a look through it, and it's pretty exciting thinking of all the airfields that I can hopefully visit.

I was surprised to find that LARS is pretty much not available on weekends (when I'd be most likely to want to use it), and also the number of airstrips that do not have any type of fuel, and the others which only have Jet A1 - this is by no means a critisism of the airfields but it's just a reminder for me that fuel planning is ever so important.

It's pretty facinating seeing the number of private airstrips, and the opportunities this gives us as pilots.

I'm not sure what the AFE equivalent is like, but well done Pooleys, and here's to another 50 years of publishing the guide! :ok:

T.

[T8CAA]

Hi - Know what you mean. I got my first one, after some prompting by more experienced pilots, last year and it has been an essential part of the flying kit since. I found that a one stop shop for most of the info in need to go places is invaluable and it also encourages you to scan for new places to go.
The update service is well worth following and they do seem to keep ahead of some of the official publications when it comes to changes.
If you havnt done so already it is worth getting the loose-leaf version.You can then either use the relevant original pages for the flight or do what I do and copy the pages so I can write notes if needed.
Happy Xmas and enjoy browsing through all that info!
Chris

[skua]

I have just opened a early Christmas present - a Pooleys 2007 refill for my existing ring binder. What have the idiots (well actually Bob P is a charming man) done? They have gone down from 4 to 2 rings, so that the new refills don't fit. Much hand hole punching in store for when I can be a****ed. V irritating. Might switch to AFE next yr on principle.
Season's greetings and happy landings in 07
Skua

[A and C]

I once had one of those Poolys things but then I discovered the Jepp botlang airfield manual and the poolys was religated to its secondary role of wheel chock, a role it performs superbly.

[maggioneato]

When I read Skuas post, I thought bugga, but on checking, my refill which arrived yesterday does fit my existing binder, but had it not it would have gone straight back, then I would have bought an AFE guide instead. Is this a way to get us to spend yet more money buying a new binder when there is nothing wrong with the old one, other than it doesn't fit. :*
I was wrong, it doesn't fit. I didn't look properly. Other than cutting off the top and bottom rings with the grinder, it's first an grumpy email to Pooleys to complain. If it takes as long for them to get back to me as it did to send the guide, it will be a waste of time. AFE is looking more attractive.
I'm not buying a new binder on principal.

[tiggermoth]

If you havnt done so already it is worth getting the loose-leaf version.You can then either use the relevant original pages for the flight or do what I do and copy the pages so I can write notes if needed.
Happy Xmas and enjoy browsing through all that info!
Chris

T8CAA, congratulations on your first post, welcome to pprune, and a Happy Christmas to you too.

Yes, it is the loose leaf one I've got - so I'm looking forward to the updates too. The idea of photocopying the relevant pages for each flight is a very good idea indeed!

A and C (& others) The Jepperson or AFE guide - how do they compare?

T

[Rod1]

I got my Pooleys update recently. I was impressed with the new colour layouts and very unimpressed with a free frequency guide dated about 2003! I to found the additions did not fit my binder, but picked one up from a local airfield for £6.50, so not too much pain.

With the increase in information on the web, I wonder how long it will be before I stop getting Pooleys. Downloading the details of where I am going and a few alternatives free and bang up to date can be done in a few minutes.

Rod1,
Pooleys user since 91’

[A and C]

If you buy the Jepp product you get 13 updates a year so it would seem logical that the 2007 poolys would have been updated with the 13 amendments that Jepp customers get throughout the year.

I take it that Poolys has an amendment service ?

[A and C]

In answer to your question, the AFE graphics are not the best and I,m not sure how the ammendments work in a spiral bound book.

Pooley's graphics have been much improved ofer the years but still rather small and the ammendments are an issue if the format is not loose leaf.

The Jeppesen has the best graphics by far and the ammendment service is the best, real europe wide coverage is avalable (in one off trip kit format if you wish)

Jeppesen costs more but in my opinion is worth the money, when the cockpit workload is high at a new airfield at the other end of europe having a chart in the format that you use at home is worth a lot.

[dublinpilot]

Well....I don't like the Jeppesen Bottlang guides that much....

...downsides:

1. No indication of landing fees whatsoever
2. No local info such as taxi phone numbers, food available on airfield etc
3. Information is frequently out of date...particularly phone/fax numbers.

I'm not saying that the Pooleys or AFE are brilliant either, just that the Bottlangs aren't perfect.

[tmmorris]

AFE updates are monthly by email - you have to write them in yourself - but if you have the loose-leaf version they do send out some replacement pages from time to time. It's not like Jeppesen, i.e. every change doesn't trigger a replacement page - you are expected to be handy with a pen.

What do you expect for £20-odd?

Tim

[A and C]

Interesting difference of veiws but I can assure dublinpilot that the Jepps do have an indication of avalability of food and taxi's (but not the phone numbers) as to the updates some of these will be found in the "chart notam" section before a full revision of the plate happens.

The only direct price comparison is if you look at UK and Ireland coverage with inital price and (year two) Pooleys £61 (£49) AFE £57 (£47) Jeppesen £70 (£50)

The Jepps cost a little more but not by much when the quality is considered, the other thing to be taken into account is soon the VFR Jepps will be avalable on Jeppveiw CD.
This will be a real bonus if you have ever had to lug a european set of Jepps around, Jeppveiw has halved the weight of my (IFR) flight planning kit I look forward to my VFR planning kit being reduced to the weight of a compact disc.

[dublinpilot]

A&C,

The Bottlang does have a knife & fork symbol, but no further info beyond that. Pooleys & AFE tend to do that better, indicating what level of service is available on the aerodrome, and if none, then what's in the locality along with the phone numbers so that you can check their opening times or make a reservation.

As you say Bottlang shows a Taxi symbol, but no phone numbers. Not much use when you land and there is no one around, and you're in the middle of nowhere. Having a taxi phone number can come in very handy. It's the easiest way to civilisation, and usually very helpful in finding a hotel for the night if your stay was unexpected! Probably not so much of a problem for you IFR boys, but something us VFR tourers have to deal with :O

The lack of a figure for landing fees is what I find it's biggest drawback. I do check these with the airport when getting PPR to avoid a nasty shock, but it's handy to have some indication of fees when deciding where to go.

As I said earlier, I'm not saying that the others are brilliant, but I though that you were praising them so much, that people might get the impression that Bottlang were somehow perfect. I would prefer a Pooleys/AFE over the Bottlang, but unfortunately when traveling to the conteniant, I've little choice but use Bottlang.

dp

[BEagle]

"What have the idiots (well actually Bob P is a charming man) done? They have gone down from 4 to 2 rings, so that the new refills don't fit. Much hand hole punching in store for when I can be a****ed. V irritating. Might switch to AFE next yr on principle."

I've just e-mailed Pooleys to ask why the loose-leaf version isn't being produced with 4-hole punching. The 2006 version fitted my existing 4-ring binder...just. The reason I prefer the 4 hole binder is that the pages are less likely to rip when leafing through the binder in a hurry. 2 holes are insufficient unless rip-proof paper has been used. Has it? I somehow doubt it.

I've been buying Pooleys for about 10 years. But I shall wait for their answer before spending my money with them again!

Hated Bottlang with its little symbols and horrid paper.

[A and C]

Jeppesen (Botlang) with NO paper at all soon !

[BEagle]

How truly appalling!

[pchappo]

i bought an afe spiral over a pooleys for this year - of the limited numer airfields i have visited in my training so far, it gives me more info than the pooleys

[Rans Flyer]

I buy an up to date guide every year, and here’s my quick review.

Bottlang (nice overview map or the local area, flimsy and not many small airfields).

Poolys (good level of detail, but small maps, and typeface/layout makes it hard to read in the air).

AFE (largest amount of airfields – 2007 color edition even has small grass strips like Swanbrough Farm - biggest maps, clear and easy to read.)

Not one of them is perfect (I’d like the AFE with the Jepp overview map, and some of the additional text from the Poolys), but for me the AFE is the best.


Rans,
www.Flight For life.co.uk (www.flightforlife.co.uk)

[javelin]

So, here is a confession !

A couple of years ago, I got a bit guilty flying with a 1988 stolen copy of Pooleys, so I set off to a local aviation supply shop to purchase a new and current copy of AFE - which I prefer.

Copy in hand I went to the till and while standing in line, I noticed a box full of last years copy for a fiver.

Well, being a true Yorkshireman, there was only one course of action. I duly returned the new copy and went to purchase the price beneficial copy.

I then got a right chewing off by the shopkeeper who questioned my very existence and cast nasturtiums about my qualities as a commercial pilot.

My thought was I saved a tenner or so, so me and my mate went to the pub!

I still have it and it serves me well :ok:

Flame away boys, I don't care - it's Christmas !

[A and C]

Your attitude to airfield plates on computor shows how little long distance flying you must do in a light aircraft, a set of UK and near europe Jepps (IFR) and the Jeppesen Botlang VFR manual runs to six books each of about 2KG plus the bag to carry it all and you have total used 14Kg of payload or to put it another way half an hours endurance or sixty miles range.
As access to the aircraft at larger airports can be limitted the whole kit plus personal bags needs to be transported to the hotel if you don't want to spend the first 2 hours of each flying day at the airport flight planning.
Enter the small laptop and printer at about 25% the weight of the books and able to connect to the web for the airfield plates, WX, computor plogs, flight plan forms in AFTN (to cut down on fax time) and soon to file flight plans direct.
Yes we do print paper approach plates for the destination and diversion airfields and have a paper plog, because the computor is updated by CD the amendments take 126 seconds to do, the header on the plate will tell you if the plate is not within the current amendment cycle so the chances of using a superseded plate are almost nill.
Flight planning can all be done in half an hour before breakfast at the hotel, the flight plan filed by fax. So no more rushing around airport offices trying to find Met and flight planning and then waiting an hour for the flight plan to get into the system.
Jeppesen tell me that the Botlang VFR plates are soon to be avalable on "Jepview"................... the sooner the better in my view!!

[BEagle]

A&C - sorry, I thought you meant that Jeppesen was in future only going to be available in electronic form!

You're right - I certainly don't do any long distance flying of the type which would need such a facility as you describe. A current Pooley's or AFE will do just fine for VFR work.

[tiggermoth]

Blimey, I've now looked at my Pooleys a bit more while chomping endless turkey sandwiches, contemplating where to go with my new PPL... only to discover that a great portion of the airfields that feature on the 1:500 000 chart local to my field (Barton) do not appear in Pooleys at all. :bored: The coverage of the North West seems to be a bit limited, but I may be missing a trick here?

For example, I see "Rossendale" and "Warrington" on the 1:500 000 chart - where would I go for information on these?

TiggerMoth

[ChampChump]

www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=160771
Sorry, I can't do easy links, but this old thread has what you need. I hope it works.
CC

[tiggermoth]

ChampChump - that worked like a charm - thanks!

[Pooleys Information]

Dear all,

Thank you for your comments and apologies to 'skua' and 'maggioneato' for the inconvenience caused by there being only 2 holes this year.

I'd like to explain the reason for the change.

In 2002, we could no longer source a binder clip with 4 bars that was big enough to fit the flight guide in comfortably, as the flight guide had grown in size each year. Up until last year, we kept the 4 drilled holes in the insert. We mentioned in our letters of 2004 and 2005 that a new binder was advisable as the guide was now too big to fit. However, and apologies to all for this, we did not mention this year that we were having just 2 holes drilled in the insert.

We have had a number of phone calls from customers who have experienced the same problem.

**We are issuing for free a new 2 ring binder to all our customers who have an old 4 ring binder.**

All of the customers who have phoned up have been very pleased with this response from us and have accepted our apologies.

So, please do pass this information on to your friends and fellow pilots as I'm sure there will be others who opened there Christmas present this year and experienced the same frustration you did. We are now advising our customers as they order. We have asked Transair to change the image on their website and have asked them and all the other main retailers to advise customers of the same.

On a seperate note and in response to one comment I saw posted from 'shemy' about yearly changes, the information in the Flight Guide changes a great deal from one year to the next and in the past few years the rate of change has increased enormously. For those of you who purchase a Loose Leaf Flight Guide from us each year, you may have noticed that each of our 4 amendments that are posted to you have increased in size from 16 pages to 32 pages on average - every 3 months. The changes affect over two thirds of the guide each year.

Please do not hesitate to contact us on 020 8207 3749 for your replacement binder or if you have any other queries.

Happy New Year to you all.

Kind regards,

Sebastian Pooley
Managing Director
Pooleys Flight Equipment.

[Sideslipper]

As one of those who phoned Pooleys about this problem, I received a new binder within a couple of days.:ok:

[maggioneato]

I spoke to them a week ago, still no binder, looks like another call is in order. :*

[BEagle]

Sebastian,

Last year's Pooley's fitted into my old 4 ring binder without too much difficulty.

Why on earth don't you just keep the 4-hole drilling? A 4-hole page will fit into a 2-hole binder, but a 2-hole page certainly won't fit a 4-hole binder. I would be happy to bin the pages I'll never use, if it meant that the others would be securely retained in a 4-hole binder.

Anyway, I very probably won't be ordering a 2007 Pooley's unless or until you do release a 4-hole version. It's not the size of the binder which is the issue, it's the security of the pages.

I tried to ring you several times recently, and also sent an e-mail. I still await your reply.

May I suggest that you try a bit harder to find a suitable 4-hole binder - even if it means a different spacing for the holes. It seems to be what many of your long-established customers want!

[maggioneato]

My binder arrived this morning. I agree with BEagle, why not 4 holes to fit both. Seeing I have already bought this years I will see how it goes, if the pages start ripping out, I won't be buying again next year.

[Pooleys Information]

I agree with your comments. We will be looking again at trying to source a 4-ringed binder but next year's guide will certainly come with four holes.

[BEagle]

Not sure if I'll bother to wait that long....

For a start, please supply 2007 updates with 4 holes! Can I subscribe just to the update service, if you cannot supply the 2007 version of the guide with 4-hole punching?

Still waiting for an answer to my e-mail, by the way.

[Cusco]

I had a brief flirtation with Pooley's spiral bound guide last year; I didn't like it as it actually is bound with two spirals linked with a piece of wire which actually slipped out in flight so I had two separate guides.

So I've gone back to Jeppesen this year no regrets.

Why?

Their small area map on opposite side to airfield plate is very easy to read, gives an instant picture of airspace and direction of VOR/DME radials for my RNAV, and secondly Jeppesen market a spiral bound 30 pouch folder into which I slip the 15 or so commonly used airfield plates , to which I add other destinations/alternates each time I fly to a new destination.The main Jeppesen can therefore stay in my flight bag or on the ground.

I keep a second 30 pouch folder for cross channel forays.

By only bitch is that the blue plastic used for the covers of these files is a brittle as hell and snaps like matchwood into small bits.


Safe flying.

Cusco:O