Long Trip - Planning Options & Charts

East Coast to Colorado with overnight stops in WV, MN in the 182 rolleyes since the RV ain't gonna be done for awhile. Crossing the Rockies. VFR with some "light" IFR (I know, some of you love that term). GPS396; otherwise VOR nav for IFR. Really just need a legal and usable backup to the 396. Can't stand the thought of spending hundreds of dollars on charts for what amounts to an occasional long flight. I think I've boiled it down to these options:

1. Aeroplanner.com - free to EAA members, haven't tried it yet. Any comments?

2. Jeppesen's Internet Flight Planner - ($20/month, 3 month min) - looks comprehensive with weather, TFRs, etc and will print a tripkit with all charts needed along route. I think it does IFR as well as VFR. Not sure if it can be used from any computer I use along the way (I ain't carrying a printer). Comments?

3. Air Chart Systems. Spiral Bound Eastern / Western US Sectionals, and US WAC scale topos in one book. Thinking maybe just the topo for $100.

Will use Airnav to plan for fuel and a lot of people have been saying good things about Weathermeister.com so I'll check that out when enroute.

What have you found to be effective in a similar situation?

One way...

Noah said:

East Coast to Colorado with overnight stops in WV, MN in the 182 rolleyes since the RV ain't gonna be done for awhile. Crossing the Rockies. VFR with some "light" IFR (I know, some of you love that term). GPS396; otherwise VOR nav for IFR. Really just need a legal and usable backup to the 396. Can't stand the thought of spending hundreds of dollars on charts for what amounts to an occasional long flight. I think I've boiled it down to these options:

1. Aeroplanner.com - free to EAA members, haven't tried it yet. Any comments?
........

Will use Airnav to plan for fuel and a lot of people have been saying good things about Weathermeister.com so I'll check that out when enroute.

What have you found to be effective in a similar situation?

Click to expand...

Use #1.... works great - and even better if you have simultaneous windows open on your PC to Airnav and SkyVector.

SkyVector is quicker to move/adjust in Windows, and has a rudimentary flight path feature. Pick your way points and check points in SkyVector, cut and paste the list into AeroPlanner and save the route. Check on-route airports with AirNav. On the morning of your departure, the saved route can be called up with the currect winds aloft, and a flight log generated.

AeroPlanner will print out WAC charts (trip-tics), though is a little slower and involved in the free EAA version. I believe they are legal.. they do print the chart edition number of the same sheet.

WeatherMeister is really good for advanced weather planning, route of flight weather and TFR/NOTAMs... but Dan C. doesn't claim it to be a full route planner.

Use the various tools (mostly free), taking the best/easiest from each...

....well that's the way I do it... you'll get many other options... gil A

Presently planning a 3000 mile trip in the Tiger this July.

Full Disclosure - I am a WeatherMeister beta tester...

PS - I found the AOPA flight planner difficult to use...

PPS - 100LL prices are going up so fast, I think cell phone calls are needed to verify the prices. Our Airpark wholesale price quote (one tanker load) went up 34 cents in two weeks, and the next price quote is tomorrow....
UPDATE - the increase was another 11 cents.... bummer.

Air Chart Systems

I have been using the Air Chart Systems for a few years traveling all over the US in my Bonanza. Pretty good system. I would recommend the East and West sectional books. The system used to come with the WAC and I never felt like I had all of the information I needed using WAC as opposed to Sectional. I also use their Low Altitude Enroute chart book for IFR. Works great. Three spiral bound books and I have the entire US VFR and IFR.

Of course, a good electronic solution sounds inviting as well.

How' Bout Esectionals?

Thanks for the comments Gents.

Anybody tried ESECTIONALS from VFR Copilot?
http://www.vfrcopilot.com/1_esectionalsOVERVIEW.htm

Gil, did you mean to say AIRNAV will print a WAC Chart Tripkit? I don't see that in their list of options??

Ooops...

Noah said:

Thanks for the comments Gents.

Anybody tried ESECTIONALS from VFR Copilot?
http://www.vfrcopilot.com/1_esectionalsOVERVIEW.htm

Gil, did you mean to say AIRNAV will print a WAC Chart Tripkit? I don't see that in their list of options??

Click to expand...

No..my mistake....

I meant to say the EAA AeroPlanner will. Has a nice printed orange line of flight, distance markers to the next waypoint, and landscape or portrait orientation for N-S or E-W flights

It's a little involved at one page at a time, but does work. They would really like you to spend extra $$ ad upgrade and create a single PDF file containing all of the WAC/sectional pages. I mentioned WAC trip-tics, but it will also print Sectional ones... however the page count gets high on a long trip, and out here in the West I found the narrow width of the mapped area to be a disadvantage.

I went back and edited my post...

gil A

dmaib said:

I have been using the Air Chart Systems for a few years traveling all over the US in my Bonanza. Pretty good system. I would recommend the East and West sectional books. The system used to come with the WAC and I never felt like I had all of the information I needed using WAC as opposed to Sectional. I also use their Low Altitude Enroute chart book for IFR. Works great. Three spiral bound books and I have the entire US VFR and IFR.

Of course, a good electronic solution sounds inviting as well.

Click to expand...

Just used the Air Charts for a long cross-country for the first time (Houston to Sandpoint, ID). They are very nice for in-flight, following your position. But I didn't find them much use for looking forward and picking out airports or other objects that are more than one page away. I would rather have a standard sectional for that.

I transposed some page numbers and turned to the wrong page several times. Didn't catch the mistake until I had let go of the last page. It takes a while to find your way back to the previous page. I fixed this by looking forward and marking my next page well before I needed it then when I did change pages, I would verify I was on the right page before releasing the last page.

Just takes some getting used to. Not sure if I will like it better than a stack of sectionals... but I've got a year to make up my mind.

Karl

Now in Sandpoint, ID.

Skyvector.com for free chart viewing, good UI like google maps - allows you to switch from sectionals to low-level IFR.

WACs for laying the whole thing out. Also useful for when the glowing screens go dark, never runs out of batteries, etc.

TODR

Just More Opinion

For pre-flight planning I am extremely pleased with Golden Eagle, free from DUATS. Runs well on any XP computer. For $$ you can add sectionals but I don't think you need to. I use AirChart Sectional (WAC less satisfactory) in the cockpit along with a 496 of course.

ESectionals were OK, but you need something in the cockpit. For the price of eSectionals, more or less, you can add the scanned sectionals to Golden Eagle and have MUCH more functionality.

I've never used it but Voyager looks good and is running a very attractive special right now.