For the IT masochists among you
it can be done
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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, 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.......
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.