"rps" wrote:
Has anyone recently done a comparison to find out what the government
plates lack?

I made the Jepp - Govt switch a couple of years ago (soon after they
adopted the new format, I guess).

2. No NOTAMs.

This is a plus and a minus. On the plus-for-Jepp side, you get notam
update service. On the plus-for-Govt side, filing all those updates is
exactly what I wanted to get away from. There's probably no perfect
solution to this.

One advantage to the Govt plates is you can get them anywhere, or download
just the ones you want (as high-quality PDF's) from numerous free sources
on the net (I use www.airnav.com).

The Gov't plates come in two flavors -- punched for a ring binder, or
bound. I started with the punched ones, and quickly gave that up for the
bound versions. I find the bound so much more convenient, and less likely
to get trashed/torn/smashed.

As an aside, what are people using to determine weather these days? I
hated DUATS and I assume there are a lot of much better weather sources
for pilots on the web these days. I've seen the AOPA weather
materials, but is there something superior?

I use raw duats (telnet to direct.duats.com). I find most of the web sites
annoying and more complicated to use than the raw telnet service. To each
their own, I guess.