GPS mapping options for an Ipad?

[IO540]

I have got one of these, largely because I am spending many hours on JAA IR question bank swatting and it is convenient for lying down with, and later it will be handy around the house for casual www / email stuff.

Looking at making it more useful...

At max brightness (battery life ~ 5hrs) with a matt stick on cover, it is just barely cockpit usable providing one keeps the sun off it. The GPS works OK without GSM signal reception, in the TB20 with a composite roof.

It is also a very good PDF viewer, for approach plates.

So it is worth a try.

For UK VFR, one can download Memory Map. This is a crippled version of the PC MM program, but it works. One can transfer maps into its workspace (in the Church of Jobs ipad/iphone world, each app has its own data which other apps, generally, can't access) via WIFI, which works, but one can't (apparently) create directories so organising many maps is tricky. Also transferring loads of QCTs (e.g. the UK airport diagrams) is clumsy via the WIFI / browser transfer. It works OK for a small number of maps.

MM can run user-scanned charts if you get them into QCT but the process for this is complicated. Very few people know how to do it. Somebody scanned in the 2010 CAA 1:500k charts and they run well; a nice single QCT for all of the the UK.

I see no option for general European VFR, because Oziexplorer is not (yet) available for the Ipad and that rules out the large number of "shared" ;) maps.

Jepp have just announced FliteDeck (a moving map prog previously bundled with Jeppview 3) for the Ipad. For IFR this is a reasonable backup to your panel IFR GPS. Unfortunately FD cannot run the Jepp VFR Raster Charts, and cannot run any user-scanned charts, which rules out meaningful European VFR coverage.

I fly almost wholly IFR when abroad but a VFR map is necessary for the VFR sections of Z/Y flights, or on any IFR flight which involves collecting an airborne IFR clearance.

Anything else out there?

[S-Works]

Now that you have joined the cult......

Air Nav pro. Plenty of free maps with it and you can in app purchase the UK CAA maps both 250 and 500 mil. You can get the detailed charts for all of Europe.

That and Jepp FD effectivly give you pretty much everything you need.

[BackPacker]

Second Air Nav Pro. A bit pricey compared to other stuff in the iPad world, and you need to pay for each VFR chart separately, but well worth the money. The latest update makes it much faster, although I do find flight plan management (particularly creating new plans and deleting them) more complex now. There used to be a separate menu for that, but it's now integrated in the base chart functionality.

Also a very tentative recommendation for iAIP. This little (and relatively inexpensive) app is just a convenient interface to the various AIPs that can be found on the web. Some of these however are behind a password so you need to enter the AIPs web password in iAIP to access. And I found that the Dutch pages were not accessible after an AIRAC cycle update - apparently the AIRAC cycle (which is part of the URL) is hard-coded in iAIP. A recent update fixed this, but I hope that fix will work for the next AIRAC cycle as well. Anyway, the best feature is that iAIP makes it very easy to download the airport pages and store/view them offline.

On the other hand: If you have some sort of Jeppesen subscription that you can use on the iPad, don't bother with iAIP at all. After all, it just dumps the AIP on you, and the AIP is not always in a convenient format to use in-flight.

For everything else there's Dropbox and GoodReader. Simply prepare whatever you think you need on your PC/laptop at home (as PDF), dump it into the Dropbox folder (in which you can create subfolders as required), wait a few minutes until it has synced to the iPad, open Dropbox on the iPad and view the document using GoodReader.

[AdamFrisch]

Foreflight HD is great for the US part, but their international bit is rubbish. They sell it as this worldwide tool, but actually, not even Canada or Mexico is supported and certainly not Europe.

[IO540]

Can't find their website; only the Apple shop which has little info.

I've seen that product before. They basically run various countries' "ICAO" charts. These are of very variable quality. But I can't find the pricing.

There doesn't appear to be a way to run generic scanned charts, which rules out a lot of stuff I can get my hands on.

Has anybody jailbroken their Ipad? It looks like one can make it a lot more usable then. A replacement keyboard with cursor keys (what was Jobs thinking, leaving those out?), decent multi-format video players (VLC etc), etc. And of course direct access to each app's file system so one can drag/drop stuff straight in there instead of going via that virus called Itunes. The standard product is a superb piece of hardware (best tablet out there) running software which is crippled in so many irritating ways.

[BackPacker]

Forgot to add. Dropbox on iPad doesn't store files locally, only makes them available when online, by default. To have them available offline you need to star them.

[Ellemeet]

airnav pro is oke
the new jepp mobile fd is a real 1.0 with potential

nothing compares to foreflight for us

i personally really like skymap
Sky-Map - Aviation Moving-Map Navigationssystem (http://www.sky-map.de)

its icao charts are super and info is super
you can als take a subscription on german wetterservice giving you a good view

two catches. it does not comr cheap but it is a lot better then airnavpro
and .. jeppesen does not allow them to sell their european charts.. thus they only have icao charta for holland germany belgium france swiss and austria

but really it is good!!

[SDB73]

I used airnav pro for the first time in flight yesterday, just on a local flight around the Midlands.

I purely tried it out to see how smoothly it updated, how well it maintained GPS, and how visible it was in the cockpit, so I was basically just using it as a folded up ICAO map, which happened to have a moving aeroplane on it!

The iPad is (as suggested) pretty rubbish in durect sunlight, but it seemed to work well.

Going to play with it a little more to see how to make more use of it.

I also bought a knee board attachement for the ipad which I forgot to take to the airfield, so will try that out over the next couple of days.

I've been toying with the idea of one of these airbox aware type devices, or the big portable garmin, so just trying to convince myself one way or another whether it's really necessary to buy something like that if you already have an iPhone and an iPad in the cockpit. Probably not, is my current thinking - for UK VFR.

[IO540]

Can an Ipad work with "any" bluetooth-connected NMEA GPS, or does it have to be a specific model(s)?

[dublinpilot]

Airspace Avoid (http://www.airspaceavoid.com)

Runs on ipad (and Android) and is intended to be an airspace warning tool. It has airspace data for all across Europe (professionally maintained by the PocketFMS Foundation).

As it's purpose is to be an airspace warning tool rather than a navigation/planning system, you can only entre a simple one leg flight plan.

Basic maps consist of just airspace (as it's all that's needed for airspace avoidance) but additional background maps can be purchased if desired.

The app costs €12.99. A PocketFMS background map for all of Europe costs €40.

ICAO charts are available too with each country priced individually. UK ICAO charts aren't available yet, but will be soon.

[Lima Juliet]

IO540

It has to be an "Apple friendly GPS" or you have to "jailbreak" your iPad.

LJ

[IO540]

Does any such Church of Jobs GPS have an external active antenna input (SMA or SMB)?

If not, it doesn't really solve the problem fully.

The Ipad2 GPS is OK airborne - after a slow start.

[S-Works]

There are plenty of third party GPS units that work just fine with the iPad. Pretty much any of the bluetooth units work fine. You can even use an iPhone to send GPS data to the iPad via bluetooth. Airnav Pro has the capability of receiving it. I have not found a problem with the built in GPS yet even in a 5t high wing aircraft. I have encountered the problem as with all GPS units that it can't see through our heated windscreens at work which has required the Bluetooth GPS on a side window.

As for file storage, reading etc take a look at GoodReader. This will connect to virtually any online storage facility. It allows you to keep documents locally and pull down over the air whatever you have in storage. I have every available European AIP in my MobileMe cloud space and pull down the ones I need for off line viewing deleting the local copy when I am done. The plates are available from CISflight.

I use Foreflight HD when in the USA and that is really the yardstick for all navigation applications with airways and VFR charts, IAP etc but in Europe it is pretty hollow and not worth the money.

My current 'active' collection of apps that I use for work and play are:

Jepp FD & TC
AirNav Pro
Goodreader
Weather Pro HD
Aero Weather
World AV WX
FlightPlan

For online planning and filing I use rocket route which works fantasically on the iPad once you have learnt about some of its quirks!!

The iPad is not perfect but it does a pretty good job of meeting my needs and it is a damn site better than what we had just 2 years ago and saves me lugging a laptop across the world all the time.

Approach it with an open mind and you will be surprised what you can do with it.....

[IO540]

Goodreader is OK. Use it already. One can even download directly into its private workspace using this (http://www.macroplant.com/iphoneexplorer/) so no need for Itunes.

There is no way to do Eurocontrol IFR route design on an Ipad, AFAIK. Flightplanpro doesn't run on it so Rocketroute is the only option, which costs money.

It will be a long time before a laptop will be obsolete. Printing is a bl00dy nightmare for a start. The best one can do is print to a PDF and email it to somebody; OK if on a non roaming connection, or wifi. With no USB port, no flash stick options.

A lot of pilots are trying to find ways to use the Ipad because the hardware is so good. It is a good "75%" solution, and better than that for short trips, or VFR.

[S-Works]

You are always going to be faced with paying for Airways planning as the information is charged for at source under the user pays scenario unfortunately.

I have found rocket route a really useful tool for IFR planning and filing on the go and for what is a fairly small fee I think its worth the money. Certainly a lot less than the cost of the Flitestar updates and with the advantage of real time flight plan filing and updates.

I would suggest you give it a try before you dismiss it as I think you will it will lift your iPad utility beyond the 75% threshold. I have not taken my laptop out of the bag in over a year. The first few months I carried them both but as I learnt how to adapt with the iPad I found I needed it less and less. You will find if you are prepared to change how you do and perceive things you will find it easier to find new and often better solutions.

I have not had a problem with printing, there are plenty of apps that provide print services, I have printopia on my mac that allows me to print from any print enabled application on the iPad to my household printers and if on the road and a really need something printing I either email and get it printed or print to fax using the eFax service. But in reality I rarely print anything these days. I use the iPad instead and those goes for everything from plates to plans. I even have all of my Instructor Manuals and Examiner guides as .pdf files on the iPad.

[IO540]

You are always going to be faced with paying for Airways planning as the information is charged for at source under the user pays scenario unfortunately.

Nonsense. Nobody pays for airways route planning. You are getting confused with IFR route charges. Eurocontrol even offer a free "route suggest" feature, though it is not on a public website (B2B VPN only) and Avbrief's gateway died a while ago.

Mike Flynn's FPP does it for nothing. It just doesn't come in an IOS version.

Certainly a lot less than the cost of the Flitestar updates and with the advantage of real time flight plan filing and updates.

Flitestar is not relevant to this because it doesn't do usable IFR route planning. All it does is knock up a routepack/plog, and one can print pretty enroute airways charts from it. I like that but it isn't necessary - if one has dutifully purchased all the lower airways charts.

There are people who fly paperless and rely on ATC feeding them the next waypoint (and one could fly airways with just a Garmin 496 used as a DCT box, which is about all that a 496 with its tiny screen is good for :) ) but I wouldn't rely on that.

I'd think that porting a feature-rich app like FS to IOS would be a nightmare, and the lack of hard copy options would cripple it. It's no suprise that Jepp started with an IOS plate reader, and moved to an IOS version of Flitedeck because FD already had big buttons around the periphery. FD was also so buggy that it rarely if ever outlived a single flight without a crash, so Jepp don't have to live in fear of disappointing people with an IOS version of it ;)

It's true that one can print from an Ipad, via various means, but most of them involve either a specific HP printer or a WIFI print server (like this (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/printbureau/id363371015?mt=8)) and thus only work at one's home, where one has better options (like a PC :) ). It's very early days for Ipad printing; there are all kinds of issues and when I report them to the vendor they just say "that's how it is, like it or lump it, Apple banned us from doing this or that so this is the best we can do".

None of the IOS supported printers AFAIK are remotely portable. If there was a way to print to the Canon IP90/100 (the only "portable" A4 printer out nowadays) that would be pretty good.

But the lack of FPP support remains critical. I use it all the time, with the CFMU route suggest (via EuroFPL, which I pay for, and which I use for IFR flight plan filing) as a backup. It's possible that Homebriefing now offer a route suggest gateway (I vaguely recall reading something somewhere) but then one is paying for yet another website which one hopes will never get used.

So a laptop is the only complete solution for long trips, and obviously one can run Photoshop and all the "proper stuff" on it. There are very few creative apps for IOS; unsuprisingly because the finger paradigm is so limiting.

I've just tested an Emtac GPS (similar to this (http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/emtac-mini-s3-bt-gps-r1004.php) but older) with my Ipad2 but the Ipad doesn't even find it. So clearly the Ipad doesn't have a generic bluetooth serial-device support. It finds my Thinkpad X60S laptop OK... I wonder what that might achieve? The laptop has USB anyway.

[Ellemeet]

for ifr i definitely prefer www.eurofpl.eu over rocketroute and i believe it is free unless you want the premium version.

[IO540]

Indeed; the pay version gives you SMS facilities for flight plan modification, which is a great feature.

Unfortunately the Ipad (3G) has been crippled by Apple to not send or receive SMS messages, despite having all the hardware for it :) It receives SMSs from the network (http://www.zen74158.zen.co.uk/ipad/ipad2-sms.jpg) itself OK.

[porch monkey]

gns 5870 mfi works 100% on my ipad 1. Even at 450kts/FL410.

[IO540]

Is there a bluetooth GPS receiver out which works with the Ipad2, which works with "normal" windoze tablets (via the bluetooth NMEA serial device function), and which has an external antenna input?

Currently I use an old Emtac GPS which does all that, fed from a proper rooftop antenna, but as mentioned the Ipad doesn't see it.

[LeeP-PA28]

Just flown to Jersey today from Sherburn using AirNav pro all the way.

Was FL40 til POMPI and then FL65 at 125kts - it worked brilliantly.

Was able to easily navigate between the gap of L98 and DA36 before entering the zone - superb piece of kit :) Using the 5870 receiver also, and bridging the connection between iPad and iPhone was a great backup.

[stevelup]

Is there a bluetooth GPS receiver out which works with the Ipad2, which works with "normal" windoze tablets (via the bluetooth NMEA serial device function), and which has an external antenna input?
Do you really need an external antenna? Just stick one of the recommended devices in the window.

[Dark Helmet]

I am very interested in AirNav Pro. I have looked at their website and read the user manual but still have the following questions:

Does it have a leading line or heading line that shows where you will be in 5 or 10 minutes?

If you tap on an airfield does it show extended runway centre lines?

Does it allow the importing of gpx files? (For routes that have been planned on other software.)

Thank you.

[B4aeros]

MM can run user-scanned charts if you get them into QCT but the process for this is complicated.IO540,

I've just found out how easy it is to make qct maps. Here's one (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/925530/Shoreham.qct) of the Shoreham instrument approach made from the AIP pdf - you can do this with any tiff or png image. It works OK in MM Tracker on my Android so it should work on your iPad.

Also transferring loads of QCTs (e.g. the UK airport diagrams) is clumsy via the WIFI / browser transfer.MM recommend that you use iTunes to transfer maps & data to the iPad.

[IO540]

Is that plate georeferenced?

Oddly enough MM publishes (for free) the UK airport taxi plates, and they are georeferenced.

MM recommend that you use iTunes to transfer maps & data to the iPad. Itunes is a virus I try hard to avoid :) It keeps doing weird things e.g. it syncs stuff you didn't want to sync. Normally I use 3rd party progs like this to drag/drop stuff to the Ipad, though only some apps' workspaces are thus accessible. Goodreader is accessible in that way (I have put loads of avionics manuals etc on it that way) but most apps aren't. I don't think MM is.

I am somewhat put off using the Ipad as a moving map GPS, having found out how crap the internal GPS is when airborne. I already have a bluetooth GPS connected to a rooftop antenna but it isn't compliant with the Church of Jobs protocol. I would replace it with a CoJ compatible GPS if I could find one which does standard serial NMEA (so it works with everything else I have), has an external antenna input, and has an external power input.

[tmmorris]

Why do you need an external antenna input? Most users of these (e.g. GNS 5870 GPS Bluetooth Receiver for iPad iPhone and iPod touch (http://www.transair.co.uk/sp+GNS-5870-GPS-Bluetooth-Receiver-for-iPad-iPhone-and-iPod-touch+1774)) simply place them up on the coaming where they would put their remote antenna anyway. Do you absolutely need an external antenna?

Tim

[IO540]

Most GPS signal loss is not caused by flying upside down, or flying inside some 100000ft deep canyon in the Alps :)

It is caused by interference/jamming.

In extreme cases, the rooftop antenna is all that will work, and so far it has always worked except for ~1-2 mins off the coast of Italy in 2004, low level (1000ft above the sea) when there was obviously powerful GPS jamming which took out all 3 GPSs I had.

I can wipe out my Garmin 496 (antenna stuck on top of dash) by tuning (merely tuning) one of my radios to a specific NAV frequency. It's a totally baffling one; not a subharmonic of 1575MHz, and the paired DME possibility is eliminated by turning off the DME. But the rooftop antenna is unaffected.

[monkeyscribbler]

I am very interested in AirNav Pro. I have looked at their website and read the user manual but still have the following questions:

Does it have a leading line or heading line that shows where you will be in 5 or 10 minutes?

If you tap on an airfield does it show extended runway centre lines?

Does it allow the importing of gpx files? (For routes that have been planned on other software.)

Thank you.

DH: I went for AirNavPro after some procrastination. Its functionality in flight planning is pretty limited (lines from HERE to THERE but little else), but i use it as a backup for VFR flights and its a gem, at 1/10th the cost of a dedicated GPS.

yes you can get lead lines for track and heading, and it also shows the last 2-3mins of your track.

dunno about gpx files.

It doesnt show extended centre lines but it does show the approximate orientation of the main runway, so you work it out yourself.

[Dark Helmet]

Thanks Monkeyscribbler. I think I will buy it.

[BackPacker]

Its functionality in flight planning is pretty limited (lines from HERE to THERE but little else)

You start off by inputting your origin and destination (via the keypad usually) but from there you can "rubber band" the route to suit. Via existing waypoints/navaids/VRPs, or via user-defined waypoints. Although I found the catchment area of the magenta line quite small - it's very hard to get your finger in exactly the right spot so that it will rubber band your route instead of scrolling the map.

What I'm missing still is vertical navigation. In the latest update they've added a vertical profile which supposedly shows terrain and airspace ahead (I have not flown with it since that update - can't comment on it) but that's still not the same as proper vertical navigation, taking into account climb and descent profiles and possibly even the cloudbase.

What I would like to see, in addition to the rubber band technique, is a user-editable plog where you can input waypoints, altitudes etc. via a keypad.

Still, if used intelligently, it's a great tool.

[LeeP-PA28]

Is anyone running the Jeppesen software?

I'm interested in the electronic (IFR) charting and potentially the FlightDeck software, but the Jepp website is so damn hard to get anything out of !

Looking for user reviews on the charting side of things, can one drag / build favourite or en-route charts in to a quick and easy to reference folder, with the FlightDeck does it overlay your position in relation to the procedures etc?

[IO540]

Flitedeck is a moving map product, basically, which picks up a routepack prepared in Flitestar or Jeppview. It also contains some route editing features.

I found FD clunky and buggy and stopped using it early on.

I use Flitestar IFR, pasting a route into it from Flight Plan Pro. The basic workflow is described here (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/valencia/index.html) but there are multiple ways of doing this kind of thing; FPP alone is good enough by itself if you don't need a pretty enroute chart.