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Old 25th March 2014 | 09:08
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Genghis the Engineer
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Things are certainly changing. Whether better or worse is hard to say, but certainly for the more complex.

Many people now favour GPS screens, of a dozen different varieties, over paper charts. We have always had ICAO paper charts at 1:500,000 scale, but then for a while we had Jeppesen who sadly have just withdrawn that product, but also we now have the Transair/Dobossy 1:1m chart, and options to print from various packages as well.

Personally I'm experimenting with the 1m chart for long trips, whether VFR or IFR, then a printout from either MediaMap or SkyDemon for the patch around departure and arrival aerodromes. I have a GPS with an on-screen map of course (who doesn't, although there are numerous variations as I said), but would never rely upon that as my sole source of information. For local flying, I just have an A4 printout of the local patch.


That said, I think that the ICAO 1:500,000 paper charts will be with us indefinitely. Why?

(1) It always works, regardless of conditions, locale, sunlight, power, etc.

(2) It's a universal standard, and we need one of those, so that everything is a variation FROM a known standard.

(3) You need a consistent system for flying instruction, as it's not reasonable to expect instructors and examiners to constantly switch mapping system between students and aeroplanes.


However, I think it's quite likely that as the internet gets more powerful and printing becomes cheaper and ever more available, we'll probably see a move away from buying a paper chart for the year, and towards printing from the net as and when required. Many SkyDemon users, for example, are already doing that as a matter of course. But, it will still basically be a 1:500,000 paper chart.

G
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