Running AFPEX on an Ipad

[IO540]

For the IT masochists among you :) it can be done

Photo (http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m74/peterh337/Ipad%20stuff/afpex-ipad.jpg)

Screenshot (http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m74/peterh337/Ipad%20stuff/afpex-ipad-screenshot.jpg)

Obviously the Ipad cannot run the AFPEX application on itself, not least because it doesn't support Java. But one can run a Remote Desktop (also known as Terminal Services) client on it from Mocha (http://www.mochasoft.dk/iphone_rdp.htm), and with this one can access any remote PC running Windoze, on which the Remote Desktop server has been enabled.

Then, your Ipad becomes a copy of your PC's desktop, and a pop-up keyboard enables keystrokes to be entered, so any app on that PC can be run.

For performance and usability reasons this stuff works only with very simple apps which can be operated with just textual entry and preferably no drag/drop / wipe / etc kind of "mouse" actions.

The AFPEX app is fairly usable over the Mocha RDP client. Probably only marginally less usable than stuffing the flight plan text fields into any normal web-based flight plan form, especially given the bizzare lack of a TAB key on the Ipad.

Enabling RDP on your Windoze PC is pretty trivial, and you also have to open port 3389 in your ADSL router.

There are however significant "IT" issues with doing this, the principal one being that the open port (3389) in your router will be discovered by kids running port sniffers (a vast activity on the internet, second only to downloading p0rn movies and related business activities) in probably less time than it takes you to drive to the airport, and a constant series of dictionary attacks will be mounted against the now readily visible Windoze login/password prompt.

If you don't have a login/password enabled, it's game over at that point :)

If you do have a login/password enabled, it's game over too, but at a later date, and in the meantime you will have an H24 unusable computer :)

So the only way to run RDP is over a VPN (a Virtual Private Network; a secure connection between the Ipad and your PC). Most sub-£100 ADSL routers support VPNs of various kinds; usually PPTP. The Ipad supports a PPTP VPN. It also supports some others, out of the box, but they are more complicated... And I have to say that to set up a VPN you need to know quite a bit, although there are some good online articles on it. For example Draytek have very good appnotes at seg.co.uk. If you have any sensitive stuff on the remote PC(s) then some serious security needs to be considered, and actually it would make sense to just use some knackered laptop as the RDP server, running little more than the AFPEX app.

PPTP works over almost 100% of public WIFI services, and works over the majority of GPRS/3G mobile networks. On GPRS (the vast majority of countryside in UK and Europe has only GPRS, not the much faster 3G) RDP will just about work... but internet generally will only just about work on GPRS and, yeah, this is where the con of Apple's "100% internet connectivity for everything" paradigm gets so painfully exposed :)

Interestingly, this setup makes it possible to have a "club" where one person has AFPEX on their PC, and a number of people with the VPN and RDP login info can use that AFPEX program to file flight plans. Not quite what NATS intended ;) but it is a solution.

I file flight plans using EuroFPL, and normally travel with a lightweight WinXP laptop which does absolutely everything I need, very efficiently. The Ipad is far too crippled to be my sole means of internet access on any significant trip, but I carry it on short trips, and my GF uses it for web browsing, document reading, etc. I use AFPEX as a backup means of filing flight plans, and RDP makes it possible to have this backup on an Ipad.

I guess most travel-with-Ipad-only people are using EuroFPL, Rocketroute, or Homebriefing, but the above may be of interest to some.

It avoids the hassle of the suprise 3MB download of the AFPEX Java app, because the program is running remotely, on your home ADSL connection, where that doesn't matter.

The other thing is that RDP makes it possible to access other Windoze programs, of course, and FlightPlanPro becomes similarly accessible.

It doesn't need a PhD to realise that this opens the door to sharing some rather more (much more) expensive data, whereby "the club" chips in to buy the [whatever it is], and over the RDP connection one prints off the required "stuff" to a PDF and emails that PDF to oneself....... ;) ;) ;) :ok: :E :E :E

Some tips for Mocha RDP: use the 1024x768 screen setting on the Ipad, avoid having a fancy wallpaper on the home PC (for data transfer performance reasons), use 8-bit colour rather than 16-bit colour, and avoid having any icons on your home desktop outside the 1024x768 area (if you want to know why, you will find out soon enough ;) ). And don't save any VPN etc passwords on the Ipad, in case it gets nicked.

[S-Works]

Or just use Rocket Route or Arinc......

[stevelup]

Peter, try LogMeIn.

We use it for desktop support on hundreds of machines and it works a treat.

You don't need to do any port forwarding stuff and the iPad client is excellent. Data is heavily compressed and it even works (just!) over GPRS.

You can also use it completely free of charge rom any other desktop computer with internet connectivity.

Tab key is available too!

[IO540]

Logmein is a bit like uploading my bank account login details to Icloud, isn't it? Of course it is OK, everybody does it...

But anyway the basic principle stands, which is what my original post is about. Ihope somebody finds it useful.

I had already mentioned Rocketroute, but that costs money ;) Whereas AFPEX is free :ok: Don't forget, this is UK GA we are taking about :)

[stevelup]

Not really!

It uses the authentication on your machine, and the session is encrypted end-to-end. If you don't choose to save the credentials, they are never stored anywhere. Even if you do choose to save credentials, they are stored encrypted on your device, and not on LogMeIn's servers.

[Hodja]

I'm not sure I get the point of this exercise.

If EuroFPL works fine on an iPhone/iPad/Mac/PC etc (and indeed it does), and since it's free for low volume usage, why bother with AFPEX at all?

[S-Works]

Peter likes to create solutions for problems that don't exist. Ask him about using Sat Phones for METAR. Go on, I dare you you.......:p

[IO540]

Here we go again. The same people posting the same stuff every time. 1 down, 1 more to go (I am sure he will be here by lunchtime; he gets all updates on this forum pushed to his Iphone). There is a 3rd one but he doesn't come here often (as they say).

If EuroFPL works fine on an iPhone/iPad/Mac/PC etc (and indeed it does), and since it's free for low volume usage, why bother with AFPEX at all? (a) For a backup - I actually had to use Afpex as a backup on a trip (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/kithira/) a few weeks ago, when I was sitting on the apron at Corfu LGKR, +35C so quite keen to get away, and for an unknown reason the #1 option was refusing the flight plan, citing invalid data in one of the fields. I used to run Homebriefing as the backup for a year or two but since I almost never used it, I could not see the point in paying 37 euros a year. Also they bloated their website to such an extent that merely logging in used up 1 or 2 MB of data, which when roaming .....

(b) To access specific AFPEX features (not anything I ever did).

(c) For the other uses I mentioned

[BackPacker]

Homebriefing.nl has a relatively sparse, HTML-only interface and works fine from an iPad.

But I think you need to be a Dutch resident to be allowed to use it.

[stevelup]

The same people posting the same stuff every time.

I hope you're not tarring me with that brush this time. I was trying to be helpful, not criticising. I just won't bother in future...

What you suggested is a fine idea - I was merely pointing out that there was a more straightforward way to do it for the less technically savvy. An unrelated side effect is the better performance and more functional keyboard.

[IO540]

But I think you need to be a Dutch resident to be allowed to use it. You probably don't need to be a Dutch resident to use it (i.e. I doubt they filter on the basis of a "IP to country" lookup like e.g. the BBC does with Iplayer) but you may need to have a Dutch address to get the login (same as with Afpex you need to show a UK address), and more importantly it possibly works only with flights which start or end in Holland. Olivia is in the same category; some people say they managed to file flight plans wholly outside France with it, while others report that flight plans thus filed just vanished. This has been a recurring issue with online flight planning services, which have been around for a number of years now. Homebriefing.com were the first to actually officially state that they support flight plans from anywhere to anywhere.

I hope you're not tarring me with that brush this timeNot you :)

An unrelated side effect is the better performanceHow is it better, when IME the performance bottleneck is the desktop size times the colour depth times the compressibility of the data? FWIW, I've been playing with various forms of remote desktop for years and they are all pretty much the same. Given sufficient CPU / router encryption etc performance at the two ends, which nowadays is easy even for AES256 or 3DES when running up a 448k ADSL UPlink, and a given connection speed (which in this context will be 448k or whatever the GPRS/3G/WIFI link is throttled to) I find RDP runs at exactly the same speed as e.g. PC/Anywhere. PC/A has a lot of slick features (like the ability to drop down to a 4 colour rendition if you are just entering/editing text) but is unreliable and thus I did not mention it. Citrix (an improved version of RDP) claims to have a smarter compression but from what I can see is far too complex to set up.

[Hodja]

Whoops, I was just asking a friendly question. :)

I used to have issues with EuroFPL refusing to accept certain (valid) routings and destinations. However over time I seem to have figured out the tricky syntax & quirks. Also EuroFPL had a brief system availability issue about 9 months ago. Since then it's been solid.

The biggest filing problem I face is lack of online access when you most desperately need it - usually in the airport office/ramp at some remote destination. (or airborne)

[IO540]

The biggest filing problem I face is lack of online access when you most desperately need it

That one will keep popping up... I have some notes here (http://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/mobile-comms/index.html). Nothing particularly new there. Abroad, it's a toss-up between paying the roaming rate (which usually works but can be very pricey outside the EU), and buying a local data SIM.

One of the great features of EuroFPL is the ability (on the paid up membership version) to use SMS to delay a flight plan.

I used to have issues with EuroFPL refusing to accept certain (valid) routings and destinations.

That's curious. For IFR flight plan filing purposes, it is just a gateway to the AFTN. One recent problem I had, unresolved, was probably caused by some spurious character in one of the flight plan data fields. I retyped them all (or thought I did) but it didn't help, so out came Afpex, on my trusty winXP laptop, which on trips I keep hibernated with the Afpex app loaded so I don't get the suprise download. Afpex does have the perverse advantage that it "just works", and I quite like seeing the ACK or REJ come back within a few seconds.

[Hodja]

I'm using EuroFPL outside Europe as well, including South East Asia.

I've had EuroFPL reject a few major airports in Indonesia as a valid destination. The ICAO codes were indeed present in their database, but some internal glitch caused it to reject the routing.

One hour after reporting the glitch, the guys at EuroFPL had implemented the fix, and all was well.

Also a few misunderstandings regarding composite VFR/IFR FPLs using lat-long in the DEST/ field caused a bit of head scratching. But together with the fantastic EuroFPL crew, those were all sorted out too.