Marty Ross
July 24th 03, 07:27 AM
I can relate to the problem here.
It seems like such a waste of paper (and money!) to be buying all of these
charts every 28 or 56 days! I don't even use most of them! Moreover, there
are MANY MANY NOTAMS and other "updates" that don't seem to make it into
them, so I have a lot of updates to do by hand each time I buy a new set!
The responsibility of "gathering all information" pertinent to a flight
seems MUCH more tedious/difficult than it needs to be with today's
information management technology!
I'm about to take my first "real" cross country flight (400NM) this Friday
and I just plunked down $61 on (paper) charts for the way (1 WAC + 3
Sectional + 1 Terminal + 2 Low Altitude IFR + 2 books of plates)! I feel I
needed to do this, even though I believe I already have all of the relevant
charts/plates/NOTAMS on my PC and my handheld (through my subscription to
AeroPlanner.com and only several clicks of my mouse).
I think that AeroPlanner.com and other sources for updated information are
onto something that will gain momentum as "the" way to plan flights;
however, until it's accepted by the FAA, it's my understanding that I will
need the "official" (e.g., printed) versions on hand just in case this new
technology goes belly up (e.g., approved glass cockpits using FAA approved
data sources).
Nice dream, though!
"Captain Wubba" > wrote in message
om...
> Howdy. Anybody know if textual versions of IAPs are available
> anywhere, from the FAA or from anyone else? The reason I ask is that a
> buddy of mine got surprised a bit by some weather and air-filed, but
> found he didn't have the destination plates he thought he did, so he
> had to have the controller read him the procedure. Now I always carry
> my Palm Pilot with me when I fly (actually I pretty much carry it
> everywhere but the shower), and, being the computer geek I am, was
> thinking that it would be great if I could download the textual
> descriptions of all the IAPs in the nation every cycle just in case I
> got into a similiar situation. It would be a great emergency backup to
> have.
>
> Just a random thought :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Cap
It seems like such a waste of paper (and money!) to be buying all of these
charts every 28 or 56 days! I don't even use most of them! Moreover, there
are MANY MANY NOTAMS and other "updates" that don't seem to make it into
them, so I have a lot of updates to do by hand each time I buy a new set!
The responsibility of "gathering all information" pertinent to a flight
seems MUCH more tedious/difficult than it needs to be with today's
information management technology!
I'm about to take my first "real" cross country flight (400NM) this Friday
and I just plunked down $61 on (paper) charts for the way (1 WAC + 3
Sectional + 1 Terminal + 2 Low Altitude IFR + 2 books of plates)! I feel I
needed to do this, even though I believe I already have all of the relevant
charts/plates/NOTAMS on my PC and my handheld (through my subscription to
AeroPlanner.com and only several clicks of my mouse).
I think that AeroPlanner.com and other sources for updated information are
onto something that will gain momentum as "the" way to plan flights;
however, until it's accepted by the FAA, it's my understanding that I will
need the "official" (e.g., printed) versions on hand just in case this new
technology goes belly up (e.g., approved glass cockpits using FAA approved
data sources).
Nice dream, though!
"Captain Wubba" > wrote in message
om...
> Howdy. Anybody know if textual versions of IAPs are available
> anywhere, from the FAA or from anyone else? The reason I ask is that a
> buddy of mine got surprised a bit by some weather and air-filed, but
> found he didn't have the destination plates he thought he did, so he
> had to have the controller read him the procedure. Now I always carry
> my Palm Pilot with me when I fly (actually I pretty much carry it
> everywhere but the shower), and, being the computer geek I am, was
> thinking that it would be great if I could download the textual
> descriptions of all the IAPs in the nation every cycle just in case I
> got into a similiar situation. It would be a great emergency backup to
> have.
>
> Just a random thought :)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Cap