Flight planning apps can help keep flights safe
Continuing from my last post, here are numbers 7 through 12 of flight planning apps designed to make flight planning, and life, easier and safer for pilots.
Windy is an app with stunning visualizations of wind conditions up to 240 hours in the future. This would be incredibly helpful for pre-flight planning and gives you a wonderful “Big Picture” of your potential flight. The app has recently added aviation specific features, such as METARS and TAFS, making it even more useful for pilots.
Flight Aware is a very popular tracking app for both airline and general aviation. This app has a good mix of features and convenience. You can track flights based on N-numbers, airline flight numbers, or city pairs. You can even go back to a completed flight to see how far you deviated for weather or to check out your holding pattern accuracy. This app makes it fun to stalk your friends or see when your pilot spouse will be home for dinner.
FlyQ InSight is a new app to me. This one offers a unique approach to in-flight navigation and uses your iPhone or iPad camera to create an augmented reality view of the world around your airplane. You’ll see nearby airports, complete with distance and bearing, as well as weather charts and flight planning.
LogTen Pro is a logbook app that makes it a lot easier and faster to keep track of currency and flight hours. This app is one of the most powerful logbook apps available and it comes with a large amount of customization options, airline schedule interfaces and plenty of automated reports. The price is $79.99 but it’s well worth it if you are climbing the airline pilot ladder.
Flash Pass is an app that makes me wonder where it has been all of my life. Flying to the Caribbean or Canada is a cumbersome process that just got a whole lot easier with the addition of this app. It is a fast, easy AND APPROVED way of filing eAPIS paperwork with US Customs. The price is $60/year, but did I mention that it is fast, easy and APPROVED?
Last, but not least is LiveATC. This app makes it easy to listen in on Air Traffic Control from around the world. It allows pilots to improve their communication skills, figure out how to understand foreign controllers or just have fun listening to big events such as the Super Bowl or Oshkosh. Oh, and once again, it’s a great way to know when to put dinner in the oven when your better half checks in with the local tower!
I know that there are many, many more pilot apps out there, with more being introduced every day. If you have one you like that we haven’t listed, or a new one comes along that you’re excited about, let us know!
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