"
There is a program that IMHO beats all the ones you've mentioned -
it's free and much more feature-rich. It's called CoPilot, developed
by Laurie Davis and the open database for it generated by Paul
Tomblin, our own r.a.* folk.

I only disagree with you in one respect -- that is that I did not mention
CoPilot. I actually mentioned it in my first post. CoPilot is an excellent
program and Paul Tomblin's data site, navaid.com is an excellent source for
not only CoPilot, but also for using non-aviation handheld GPS.

APCalc and HotPawBasic offer two things. If you want to play with the
formulas and see how the numbers are generated, either program offers a way
to do this with minimal programming knowledge. The other thing is that they
both offer the opportunity to run a calculation that you may not be able to
find in a pre-packaged program like CoPilot.

John Bell
www.cockpitgps.com