Anyone Here Use FliteStar?

[NW_Pilot]

Anyone Here Use FliteStar? I have been using the Corporate International Version With A Worldwide Data Base For About A Year Now. Love it except for the Cost!!

[S-Works]

Yep, used it for years. The IFR version produces very Euro Control acceptable routings around European Airways. I also have the VFR RASTA charts and Jeppview so I have a one stop planning kit, all running on Parallels on my Apple!

If you think the costs in the US are high trying paying a Euro subscription!

[nouseforaname]

Bose-X do you use Virtual PC to run flitestar on your apple?

Just wondering because I had that set-up and found it didn't work so good. I've got a tablet laptop now which i use for paperless cockpit. It's really handy, get anywhere near a wireless connection when your out and about and your charts/flitestar is updated.

[S-Works]

I use Parallels, all of my Macs are Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33ghz. It runs faster under parallels than it did on my pentium D Windoze machine.

I have a compaq tablet that I occassionally use in the aircraft with an 8gb CF card to run the OS instead of a HDD the standard HDD stops working around 10,000ft. However I am a little old fashioned when it comes to plates, I like a paper version clipped to the yoke!

When I am away a take an old HP DJ 340 battery powered printer so can knock up charts during flight planning.

Likewise I use WiFi to update as well as using the Jepp weather service.

[sternone]

I use paralells desktop for all the Jeppesen products on my intel core duo macbook pro, and on my imac 24" core 2 duo, parallels runs amazingly well

i also studied the oxford series on it, i tried running jeppesen products with crossover but that didn't worked...i find crossover very usefull but only with major microbloft programs... http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/

[IO540]

I use Flitestar (actually its now dead predecessor, Flitemap, which accepts GPS input to produce a moving map) for IFR (airways) routes.

For UK VFR, or IFR OCAS (which won't make sense to you as you are in the USA) I use Navbox which is far easier to use.

Flitestar is a very clunky program, with loads of bugs, and crashes regularly. But for European IFR planning there is no realistic alternative. Even so, its autorouting usually doesn't work; one has to mess around to get a route acceptable to Eurocontrol (something else they don't have in the USA).

[soay]

Originally Posted by IO540

Flitestar is a very clunky program, with loads of bugs, and crashes regularly.

Thanks for reassuring me that it's not my fault I can't get any sensible VFR routes out of it. It's now relegated as another piece of shelfware.

[IO540]

Flitestar is no good for VFR routings. For those, you need to use a printed chart, and you draw the route with a pencil on the chart, avoiding CAS as required and aligning the route on navaids if desired, etc.

Flitestar will work out a route which avoids specified classes of CAS (there is a long checklist of items to avoid) and typically this feature might be used for VFR flights OCAS. But it doesn't have a facility for routing via navaids or intersections and is thus (for me) useless, since I always navigate "IFR" and route via navaids when possible to backup the GPS with a VOR/DME/ADF, and use airway intersections since these make very handy reporting points.

The function can be used to work out a route through the most complex airspace, in a "free routing" mode, but it then delivers a list of lat/long coordinates which is useless for human use - such a route has to be loaded directly into a GPS. Not very good.

One has to refer to the printed VFR chart anyway, since the terrain data in Flitestar is anything up to several thousand feet out, mostly on the UNsafe side. That terrain profile you see is close to useless (but is very pretty).

For IFR use, Flitestar is the only flight planning program I know of (for Europe) which can accept airway names in routes e.g.

LGKR A14 LGIR

and it will actually plot the route appropriately along the airway, generating a plot with all the waypoints. This plog can then be loaded into the GPS. This feature used to reliably crash Flitestar too, until v9.15 for which they have a patch on their website (I have a copy if you need it).

[stickandrudderman]

I use flitestar as a preliminary tool for basic planning.
"I fancy going to XXXX for the wekend, I wonder what the distance/time numbers look like"
A quick check on Flitestar to se if it's viable and then back to pen & paper for me.
Mind you that's probably because I'm a technophobe at heart!
(which explains all the typos!)

[drauk]

"I fancy going to XXXX for the wekend, I wonder what the distance/time numbers look like"

This is precisely what http://fly.dsc.net/u/Plan was designed for. There are hundred things that FliteStar will do that it won't, but I guarantee you can answer the above question faster using the Fly site. You can also use places for XXXX, rather than just aviation waypoints.

[Footless Halls]

Dead right.

I fly VFR most of the time, with a little IMC now and again.

I use 'fly' and the grea thing is I can access if from the ''thought Police' constrained PC at work or at home. And at the airfield I can just about use it using GPRS (or wi fi when available) on my xda Exec. I can also get met and winds from the Met Office website via GPRS/wi fi on the xda.

I can type any route I plan on 'fly' into my Garmin 196 quite easily and draw it onto my map by hand. This "manual intervention" forces me to make a sense check and to review the planned route against the map.

I hanker after something more sophisticated for the PC, but perhaps such does not exist? I've got enough clunky second-grate shelfware already.

The only thing I lack is some similar pda/handheld GPS combination for IFR.

[Footless Halls]

Yup, it's a fair cop.

[stickandrudderman]

Thanks for posting this link, it's a great site!