Matt Whiting wrote:
Dico wrote:

What are some of the best flight planning software available? I've
never used any but perhaps I should after briefly reading here what
they can all do for you!


I've tried the Golden Eagle software that is free from CSC DUATS, and
the AOPA flight planner and maybe one other, but I typically keep coming
back to the simple flight planner in CSC DUATS. It doesn't show you
SUA, terrain, overlaid weather, etc., but it is fast and simple and I
like the print-out format the best of any of them.

Since I fly IFR mostly, I don't worry as much about SUA and I prefer to
use Intellicast and other sources for weather anyway. I don't mind the
text interface to DUATS as I grew up in the days of teletypes. :-)

I can plan a flight faster using DUATS than I can using any of the more
graphical packages, but I'm sure if I used them enough I could get
faster. I just haven't seen the advantages to outweigh the learning
curve and the slower performance of those bloated products (I believe
Golden Eagle is a 100MB download!). That's as big as Windows was just a
few years ago...


Matt
I also use the CSC DUATS flight planner for all the reasons you cited,
plus I can access it from any computer that has internet access...I
don't need anything installed on the computer to get to it. AOPA's
flight planner requires you to install an application on your computer,
and that is a big problem if you are using someone else's as a guest.