Government/Jepp Plate Comparison

I've been away from flying for a while. I stopped flying at around the
time the government plates were rumored to be changing to a new format.
I used to use Jepps.

I picked up flying again recently. The pilot's store I went to was out
of the Jepp express packs, so I decided to give the government plates a
try. They're a lot better than I remember them - and appear to be
pretty close to what the Jepps looked like when I stopped flying.

Has anyone recently done a comparison to find out what the government
plates lack? Here are a couple of things I noticed:
1. The alternate takeoff minima provide a climb gradient in ft/nm
whereas I recall Jepps had them in fpm (for various ground speeds).
It's not a big deal - you can just flip to a table that provides a
correspondence between ground speed/gradient/fpm.
2. No NOTAMs.

The gov's cost a whole lot less than the Jepps and you don't have to
file plates every few weeks so unless there's a big drawback, I may
just stick with the gov's.

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?

Thanks

"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.

rps wrote:

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?

http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/

IMO, this site is superior for weather, but it does not provide TFRs or
distant NOTAMS as a briefing from DUATS does.

Regarding Jepps versus gov't, I am a Jepps user, but the one feature off
the gov't approach plates I like that is lacking off the Jepps is the mini
airport diagram with the approach course drawn as an arrow over the
appropriate runway.

--
Peter


















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The NOAA charts are fine for a lot less money, but you do have to be
careful with Notams - but even with current jepp charts you probably
should do that anyway.

The NOAA charts sometimes lack convenience features. If you land at
KIGQ the chart says use the KMDW altimeter setting, but doesn't provide
the KMDW ATIS freq - you have to turn to another page to get that.

Forecast weather - I like http://adds.aviationweather.gov/ a lot. For
local airports, I use
http://usairnet.com/cgi-bin/launch/c...Get+Fo recast

I still like to talk with FSS just before takeoff to get their take on
inflight weather.

For inflight weather, you can't beat the new XM systems, and a
stormscope on top of that gives you a great view if it's nasty.

One thing I don't like about government low altitude enroute charts is
that they do not show the state that an airport is in. Try figuring out
which state an airport is in (and therefore where to look up an
approach) in the southwestern Pa area (Ohio? WVa? Md?).

BTW, I spoke with a charting guy at OSH in 2004 about this. He agreed
it is a shortcoming (Jepp has it) but nothing positive has happened.

rps wrote:

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 like http://www.enflight.com. You'll see a bunch of stuff on there about how
they're going to start charging for it, but that's been on there for quite a
while, and so far, it's still available for free. Dave

rps wrote:
The gov's cost a whole lot less than the Jepps and you don't have to
file plates every few weeks so unless there's a big drawback, I may
just stick with the gov's.

What you MUST do is the "pen and ink" updates. Find the chart, and
write the changes on it, before you use it.

I find it MUCH easier to just change out the pages from Jepp... This
is probably because I looked forward to the IBM manual updates in the
IBM 360/370 era. :-)


Best regards,

Jer/ "Flight instruction and mountain flying are my vocation!" Eberhard

--
Jer/ (Slash) Eberhard, Mountain Flying Aviation, LTD, Ft Collins, CO
CELL 970 231-6325 EMAIL jer'at'frii.com WEB http://users.frii.com/jer/
C-206 N9513G, CFII Airplane&Glider, FAA-DEN Aviation Safety Counselor
CAP-CO Mission&Aircraft CheckPilot, BM218 HAM N0FZD, 233 Young Eagles!

wrote:
rps wrote:

The gov's cost a whole lot less than the Jepps and you don't have to
file plates every few weeks so unless there's a big drawback, I may
just stick with the gov's.


What you MUST do is the "pen and ink" updates. Find the chart, and
write the changes on it, before you use it.

I find it MUCH easier to just change out the pages from Jepp... This
is probably because I looked forward to the IBM manual updates in the
IBM 360/370 era. :-)

hahahahaha good one, Slash. :-)

wrote:

I find it MUCH easier to just change out the pages from Jepp..

I also don't have a particular problem with the normal 28 day page swapping
episodes. I just pull the books out during idle time watching the news or
my sons' karate practice.


--
Peter
























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Dave Butler wrote:

rps wrote:

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 like http://www.enflight.com. You'll see a bunch of stuff on there
about how they're going to start charging for it, but that's been on
there for quite a while, and so far, it's still available for free. Dave

Maybe for members who already signed up, but I tried it and have to give
a credit card number to sign up.