AOPA Flight Planner - I preferred the earlier one

I agree that DUATS planning is simple, fast and very adequate. Oh, yea, and
it's free. I almost always use it for advance planning. For one thing, I
know that I have access no matter where I'm staying at the other end.

The new AOPA planner does a couple of things that I love. First, the airways
are marked with the MEA and the navlog indicates the MEAs for airways. I can
rubber band the route so that the MEAs are acceptable to me. Second, the
TFRs are shown so that I can verify that I am clear. With the radar overlay,
it is a pretty good planning aid.

If it turns out to be a VFR flight, I can follow my planned route and not
have to worry. If it turns out to be an IFR flight, I'm also set.

The one feature that would make me a dedicated user would be to have fuel
prices displayed.

--
-------------------------------
Travis
"Ross Richardson" wrote in message
...
I called AOPA to inquire about the fact the Flight Planner didn't allow
a user defined route; it's direct or airways. They said they had to keep
it simple. You can go and strech the rubber band route.

You know, for simple flight planning, the DUATS Cirrus dial-up
application cannot be beat. Gives you interface with DUATs winds, can
plan airways, direct, user defined. I have my plane profiled and I
usually am within 5 to 10 minutes of my flight time and a couple of
gallons of fuel burn. I get a real simple printable flight plan to take
away with me.

Ross
N7905U

Maule Driver wrote:

I preferred the earlier one because it was web based and allowed me to
run
it wherever I was on whoever's system I was using (including my friend's
Macs where I've planned and filed dozens of flights).

What really is irritating me is the fact that my home 'port, 8NC8, is
not in
the airport database. Making it a waypoint still doesn't seem to allow
me
plan a flight to and from it. A minor but irritating problem. It
wasn't a
problem with the earlier tool.

Going to have to call them since there doesn't seem to be any online
help or
support on the topic.

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
I preferred the earlier one because it was web based and allowed me to run
it wherever I was on whoever's system I was using (including my friend's
Macs where I've planned and filed dozens of flights).

Fer what it's worth, Aeroplanner is incredible. I don't see it mentioned
here much anymore. The owner of the site used to post here a lot. In
Aeroplanner's infancy, he solicited our feedback and, more importantly,
acted almost immediately on that feedback in order to make it better.

Y'all all think AOPA and DUATs and anyone else in aviation ought to provide
a user friendly, multi-platform, accurate planner at absolutely no cost to
you and damn the cost to the developer. Well, all that's available at
Aeroplanner but you gotta pay for it.

You get what you pay for.

8NC8 is there, by the way.

--
Jim Fisher

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
...
I preferred the earlier one because it was web based and allowed me to run
it wherever I was on whoever's system I was using (including my friend's
Macs where I've planned and filed dozens of flights).

What really is irritating me is the fact that my home 'port, 8NC8, is not
in
the airport database. Making it a waypoint still doesn't seem to allow me
plan a flight to and from it. A minor but irritating problem. It wasn't
a
problem with the earlier tool.

Going to have to call them since there doesn't seem to be any online help
or
support on the topic.



The AOPA tool seems to not let you plan directly to private airstrips, but
you can easily modify any route it comes up with. In your case, just flight
plan to KRDU, then drag the end point to 8NC8. It's in the database, you
just need to zoom in to find it. Dragging the endpoint seems to update the
navlog correctly as well. Does that solve the problem?

-Aviv

"Aviv Hod" . ccom wrote in
message ...

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
...
I preferred the earlier one because it was web based and allowed me to
run
it wherever I was on whoever's system I was using (including my friend's
Macs where I've planned and filed dozens of flights).

What really is irritating me is the fact that my home 'port, 8NC8, is
not
in
the airport database. Making it a waypoint still doesn't seem to allow
me
plan a flight to and from it. A minor but irritating problem. It
wasn't
a
problem with the earlier tool.

Going to have to call them since there doesn't seem to be any online
help
or
support on the topic.



The AOPA tool seems to not let you plan directly to private airstrips, but
you can easily modify any route it comes up with. In your case, just
flight
plan to KRDU, then drag the end point to 8NC8. It's in the database, you
just need to zoom in to find it. Dragging the endpoint seems to update
the
navlog correctly as well. Does that solve the problem?

I believe it would. I'm going to try it. Thanks.

Jim Fisher wrote:

Well, all that's available at
Aeroplanner but you gotta pay for it.

You get what you pay for.

Someone else mentioned Aeroplanner. I read around on the web site, and the
product certainly does look interesting. I'm probably going to buy a month
of premium shortly to give it a shot.

Thanks for the recommendation.

- Andrew