A new version of ForeFlight Mobile has landed in App Store!
With this latest update, we greatly improved route selection and editing. In this release, we’re introducing “Advisors”, and the latest update provides three Advisors to start. Advisors are helpful features that make flight planning and decision making simpler. Route Advisor™, Procedure Advisor™, Altitude Advisor™, and an all new route editor – work in concert to save you time.
With Route Advisor™, you’ll see high and low airway auto-route suggestions, preferred routes, tower en-route control (TEC) routes, and a greatly expanded set of previously flown / assigned routes between airports. Procedure Advisor™ will help you select SIDs, STARs, and transitions. Lastly, Altitude Advisor™ helps you find the right altitude for your direction of travel and whether you are flying VFR or IFR. Then use the new route editor to re-arrange waypoints, insert waypoints, or drag them away from the editor to delete them.
The app update also includes Stratus 2.1 firmware, which unlocks new Stratus capabilities and greatly improves GPS and battery performance. Stratus is the highly acclaimed (read here, here, and here) portable ADS-B receiver made by Appareo Systems and available exclusively at Sporty’s.
Highlights
If you want to jump straight to the overview video, click the image below and watch the ForeFlight Mobile 4.6 overview video.
The bullet list of highlights:
- Route Advisor™: support for airway auto-routing, preferred and terminal en-route control (TEC) routes, more ATC-assigned routes between airports (up to one year’s worth, giving you lots of options).
- Altitude Advisor™: displays a list of altitudes, wind effects, and adjustments for VFR, IFR, and direction of flight.
- Procedure Advisor™: displays a list of SIDS, STARs, and their associated transitions, simplifying SID/STAR procedure selection.
- Intelligent editor: an innovative new route editor that adds drag and drop ordering of waypoints, helpful altitude selection, SID/STAR selection, and route validation as you type.
- Fast search: keyword search on Airports view is significantly faster.
- Map search: searches for single waypoints on the map do not alter the active flight plan.
- New weather stations: support for off-airport weather stations, like mountain passes and Gulf of Mexico reporting stations.
Other features include:
- Helicopter fuel reserves.
- Sticky ruler (the ruler stays on the map until tapped).
- Enhanced winds aloft calculations for longer routes.
- Support for planning from VOR or radial intersections, like LAX/246R/20 or MZB293/SLI148.
- Support for MPH as a preferred airspeed unit.
- Student Document Sharing for Educational License Program members.
Getting Smarter
One of the goals we have for ForeFlight Mobile is to continuously improve both pre-flight planning and in-cockpit productivity and efficiency. We think about the ways it can reduce the time a pilot takes to perform important and frequently repeated tasks. The new advisors in ForeFlight Mobile 4.6, combined with the all new route editor, are another step towards much more efficient flight planning and flying.
With Route Advisor™, you first enter a departure and destination airport. Tap the “Routes” button on the right hand side of the new route edit view, and a wide range of routing options are displayed. Select one of the route options, and your route is loaded in the editor. Then, use Altitude Advisor™ to select the best altitude. Finding the way is quick.
The new route editor makes changes simple and interactive. Drag and drop waypoints to re-order them, drag them off the editor to remove them from a route, or tap each waypoint for options like ‘Insert Before’ or ‘Insert After’. Any departure or arrival selected using Procedure Advisor™ are inserted into the proper place in your flight plan. Routes are continuously analyzed and validated for accuracy.
We hope you enjoy these new features as much as we enjoyed building them!
Stratus Updates
ForeFlight Mobile 4.6 also delivers version 2.1 of the Stratus firmware. This update greatly improves GPS acquisition and lock times, improves the battery charge readings, adds a new ‘Low Power’ mode that extends battery life even further, and unlocks support for Alaska NEXRAD. To update the firmware on your Stratus, see this video.
Recap
That’s all the news for this week (as far as we know). It’s been a busy few weeks in camp ForeFlight. A recap of recent announcements:
- Embry-Riddle and UND roll ForeFlight out to students as part of the expansion of our Educational License Program
- ForeFlight Earns FAA Qualified Internet Communication Provider (QICP) Approval
- Storm Tracks Now Available in ForeFlight Mobile
- Street Maps in ForeFlight Mobile Get a Facelift
- ForeFlight Releases Major Update, Introduces “Advisors” to speed up flight planning and route selection (this blog post)
AirVenture 2012
We’re off to AirVenture this Saturday and look forward to visiting with pilots while there. Stop by our booth in Hangar A – 1147 and 1148 – to talk with Pilot Support Team reps, engineers, and co-founders Jason and Tyson. This year’s AirVenture is shaping up to be quite an exciting one!
