PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - The Wizwheel, time to say good bye?
View Single Post
Old 12th Jun 2006, 18:18
  #26 (permalink)  
IO540
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: EuroGA.org
Posts: 13,787
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Beagle

You can do most of that right now.

You can plan a route with Navbox, print off a wind-corrected plog, print off the (rather rough) map, load the route into a handheld GPS, and fly it.

You still have to go to ais.org.uk for the narrow route briefing but that's only a few mins. Most of what comes out is rubbish anyway.

Similarly for the weather - for most local VFR hacking, Avbrief will deliver the data in minutes.

Still need the printed chart to plan for CAS, MSA, etc.

One could write a checklist for this process.

Little spanners in the works are:

No IFR GPS can be preloaded, but there are non-IFR panel mounts (which are actually perfectly good for IFR) which can be.

The only way to print off proper enroute VFR chart sections is to buy Jeppesen Flitestar and the VFR Raster Charts add-on; then you have the dog's bo11***s but it's not cheap. With their now-obsolete Flitemap you could run a moving map GPS over the planned route, too.

"Serious" pilots have been doing this stuff for years.

The expensive bit is of course the modern plane, but if you just want VFR and 2 seats you can get that too. Less choice and a lot more money for IFR. It's happening. But it will happen too late for the UK GA scene. The training process needs a complete overhaul first, attitudes first.
IO540 is offline