Free Flight Planning Software

Thanks Mike,
for quickly reviewing the product instead of critiquing an unfortunate
choice of word in the original post.

--
Jim Carter

I'll chip in a good word for the program as well. It is easier, more
intuitive to use than most, and for my current simple needs it works great.

That said, how do I make the private airports show up on the map. They are in
the data base, because I can find them in the search engine, but I don't see
how to display them on the map.

thanks,
tom pettit

Tom,

Look under the Preferences Menu and you'll find a selection labeled
Hide Private Airports. Uncheck this and they will show on the map.

Best Regards,

Dean Wilkinson
Razor's Edge Software

wrote in message ...
I'll chip in a good word for the program as well. It is easier, more
intuitive to use than most, and for my current simple needs it works great.

That said, how do I make the private airports show up on the map. They are in
the data base, because I can find them in the search engine, but I don't see
how to display them on the map.

thanks,
tom pettit

"A Lieberman" wrote in message
...
Can you define free????

I doubt it is free when you are charging for database updates.

How about if he advertised it as "Low cost flight planning software"?

Paul

A Lieberman wrote:

Charging a small fee for the database update service? Yes, that is
fair and the only way to guarantee that I am around to provide them...
You don't have to update if you don't want to.

Charging a fee no longer makes it free.

He advertised free flight planning software. It's very obviously free. As far as the
updates are concerned, nobody offers free updates. I have to pay AOPA and EAA dues,
and I have to pay taxes to the Feds -- that's what buys my updates there.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.

A Lieberman wrote in message . ..
On 19 Sep 2004 10:10:46 -0700, Dean Wilkinson wrote:

Dean,

The DUATS planner is subsidized by the government, I am not.

AOPA and EAA planners are subsidized by the membership, I am not.

No problem with what you say here.

Not charging a penny to download, install, and use the software for as
long as you want, that is free.

Still no problem EXCEPT, what good is outdated software?

Charging a small fee for the database update service? Yes, that is
fair and the only way to guarantee that I am around to provide them...
You don't have to update if you don't want to.

Charging a fee no longer makes it free.

Yes it is fair to charge for updates, but to advertise it's free is very
misleading and unscrupulous

I'd suspect you wouldn't fly with outdated software yourself and to
encourage your users to use your software with outdated databases is a
disservice to your company.

I am copying from your original post below for further emphasis:

"We felt that we needed to respond to the trend toward free basic
flight planning services that are currently being offered via AOPA,
EAA, and DUATS.

You are not responding to the trend toward free basic flight planning
software when you are charging for updates.

The difference again, being an AOPA member, the software and updates are a
benefit of a member. My membership fee did not go up as a result of the
flight planner.

What you are doing is charging for the updates, which invalidates the
"free" part of what you said above.

Yes, I have choices of what flight planning software I will use.

Just as an FYI, I do use AOPA flight planner at home, and when I am away, I
use DUATS or pick up the ole telephone and call FSS. I have tried the
CIRRUS program (now a new program, forget the name), but that required a
lot more computer horsepower then my 500 mhz pentium. I am the first in
line to try different things to ease the burden of flight planning, but one
thing I won't do is knowingly use outdated software for something as
critical as flight planning.

Using outdated flight planning software would be just as bad as flying with
outdated charts. It would make for a bad day to find out while in the
crag, there was a tower built after your outdated chart was printed.

Since DUATS is from what I know the only official internet briefing source
(AOPA interfaces with DUATS), I make the assumption your software does
not??? I have not downloaded it, due to the outdated database.

Bottom line, what you are offering is not free, and should not be
advertised as such.

Allen

Allen,

Give Dean a break. He clearly is up front what he is offering for Free
and data upadates are $5.00. There is not confusion. If you don't want
to use his product don't bitch about it.

Roger

Paul,

Yeah, I guess I should have worded it that way to avoid being jumped
on by self-proclaimed newsgroup police officers. Do you suppose
Lieberman has a badge, hat, whistle and a gun? I.P. must stand for
Internet Police, and here I always thought it stood for Internet
Provider...

Then again, maybe he's just sore that he and Mr. Gore lost the last
election...

Dean

"Paul Sengupta" wrote in message . ..
"A Lieberman" wrote in message
...
Can you define free????

I doubt it is free when you are charging for database updates.

How about if he advertised it as "Low cost flight planning software"?

Paul

Internet Protocol?

"Dean Wilkinson" wrote in message
m...
I.P. must stand for
Internet Police, and here I always thought it stood for Internet
Provider...

Hi Mike,

I hope that you are enjoying AirPlanLite.

From 9/18/2004 to 9/22/2004 there were 241 copies downloaded.

I sent my press release (which didn't include a title of "Free Flight
Planning Software" that was objected to here at RAH) to the AOPA, EAA,
Aero-News.net, Avweb, Flying Magazine, Landings.com, and Aviation
Consumer. So far none of them have mentioned it. I'm not surprised
since most of them have a vested interest in keeping my product out of
the public eye since it doesn't generate advertising revenue for them,
and competes with companies that do advertise with them. I'm not in a
position to spend the mega-bucks it takes to advertise in magazines,
especially since the revenue from AirPlan has been quite modest over
the past 6 years. Putting my family's finances at risk by going into
heavy debt in hopes of selling more product just isn't in the cards.
I still haven't broken-even on my booth at Oshkosh.

The reason I wrote AirPlan in the first place was because I wanted a
decent flight planner and didn't want to fork out $200 or so to buy
one for my occasional cross-country flights along with a $100 annual
update fee, and Cirrus and DUATs just weren't satisfactory. My wife
has been very patient and tolerant of my many evenings and weekends
spent working away on my home PC since I started work on it in late
1997. I still have a day job as an electrical engineer which is what
really pays my bills.

The old saying about the only way to make a small fortune in aviation
is to start with a large one appears to be true...

Best Regards,

Dean Wilkinson
Razor's Edge Software


"Mike O'Malley" wrote in message ...
OK, I guess I'll be the first one to say "thanks"!

From what I've seen so far, just playing with it, the terrain data puts it
far above AOPA's planner, and the ability to use it without needing an
internet connection is wonderful for those of us that might take our laptops
on the road.

I don't know if I'll ever use it for more than a quick overview flight
planning; as most long flights I go IFR anyway, but thank-you for making
this resource available.

On 23 Sep 2004 23:18:05 -0700, (Dean
Wilkinson) wrote in ::

I sent my press release (which didn't include a title of "Free Flight
Planning Software" that was objected to here at RAH) to the AOPA, EAA,
Aero-News.net, Avweb, Flying Magazine, Landings.com, and Aviation
Consumer. So far none of them have mentioned it.

Did you specifically address your press release to the New Products
Departments? I've had good success in the past getting advertising
exposure through that route.