david viewing
8th Mar 2012, 13:23
I was shocked just now to find that the wonderful Runway Finder is closed for good.
Runway Finder was a free flight planning tool that worked in any web browser and allowed flights within the US to be plotted with the greatest ease. The interface was completely intuitive and it made a joy out of the previously agonising process of spreading numerous sectionals across a small hotel table while trying to manoeuvre a curtain rod or something in order to draw a line.
A notice on the site points firmly at a software patent issue that must affect a great many 'mash-up' sites that integrate overlay data with Google maps or some other base. There was never better evidence that software patents are a bad idea.
Fortunately, US pilots have other choices including the rather less intuitive but still truly wonderful (and inexpensive) Foreflight.
Runway Finder was a free flight planning tool that worked in any web browser and allowed flights within the US to be plotted with the greatest ease. The interface was completely intuitive and it made a joy out of the previously agonising process of spreading numerous sectionals across a small hotel table while trying to manoeuvre a curtain rod or something in order to draw a line.
A notice on the site points firmly at a software patent issue that must affect a great many 'mash-up' sites that integrate overlay data with Google maps or some other base. There was never better evidence that software patents are a bad idea.
Fortunately, US pilots have other choices including the rather less intuitive but still truly wonderful (and inexpensive) Foreflight.