Jeppesen navdata vs nav canada digital vnc

[sky_hi]

Hey guys I have have a question, and I am looking for some guidance.

I am a Android guy and I really don't want to go out and buy a overpriced apple product just to run Foreflight with nav canada digital vnc installed.

I noticed now that garmin pilot now advertises that they have Canada coverage with "Jeppesen navdata". How does this compare to Forflight with nav canada data (vnc etc)

Thanks.

[MrWings]

I was against buying the ridiculously priced Apple products too. Then I did it just because of Foreflight.

I do not regret my decision. Foreflight is awesome.

[AOW]

Have you tried fltplan go for android? They have vnc's and it is free. Not quite as nice as foreflight, but the price is right, plus it works with your existing equipment.

[skymarc]

Garmin Pilot is not complete for Canada and it stinks. Buy an Ipad and use Foreflight.

[turbo-prop]

I second fltplan go. It has VNC, CFS, can gen, IFR maps and approach plates, all for free.

[ea306]

I was against buying the ridiculously priced Apple products too. Then I did it just because of Foreflight.

I do not regret my decision. Foreflight is awesome.

I did the same thing. Bought an iPad Mini with the 3G (Built in GPS). The size of the mini is easier I find. I also have the ForeFlight program on my iPhone 5S....but the screen is too small for my liking.

The more I use ForeFlight and become familiar with it's features...the more I love it! For general aviation it is awesome!! The terrain feature especially.

Highly recommend.

Have not tried the FltPlanGo option...so can't comment yet. But hard to compete with free99.

[5x5]

I am a Android guy and I really don't want to go out and buy a overpriced apple product just to run Foreflight with nav canada digital vnc installed.

I'm not sure why some people are for or against certain tools simply because of who makes them. When looking for any tool/product I think you should focus on its function and pick the best one. Certainly money plays a role in this assessment, but in the cockpit where you're in a real-time environment that can make you pay dearly when things don't work, reliability and dependability is paramount. I've yet to see or read about any tablet/app combination that works better than the iPad and Foreflight. Again, in the cockpit I want something that simply works and works every time, not something that "sort of" works or does some of the things I want but not all. Especially for a difference of only a few hundred dollars.

Personally, I'm very impressed with the features, function and support from Foreflight. And as for tablets, there are pros and cons of any of them, but like Foreflight, the iPad simply works and works well.

[AirFrame]

When looking for any tool/product I think you should focus on its function and pick the best one. Certainly money plays a role in this assessment, but in the cockpit where you're in a real-time environment that can make you pay dearly when things don't work, reliability and dependability is paramount. I've yet to see or read about any tablet/app combination that works better than the iPad and Foreflight.

This is true. The iPad and Foreflight probably can't be beat for a solid tablet-based solution in the cockpit. But for the same money, you can buy a dedicated Garmin Aviation GPS that is equally reliable, and no cheaper or more expensive when it comes to keeping the data current. Build it into your airplane, into the panel even, and just leave it there.

If you want a total solution that gives you not only flight data but also a tablet that is good for a lot of other things without being locked into Apple's walled garden, look at the Android solutions. FltPlan Go is excellent, given that it's *free*. A tiny bit clunky to use, but worth the small hassle for the free. AirNavPro is cheap ($50 for iPad, $30 for Android, I believe), and has great functionality and usability but doesn't have NavCanada's official charts. It does have airspace taken directly from the Designated Airspace Handbook, and basemaps from OpenStreetmap. Personally I find that easier to use than a moving map overlaid on the NavCanada charts, but I do have the choice.

And I can hack around on my Android tablet. For me, I value that higher than the perceived stability of the iPad. I've never had AirNavPro or FltPlanGo crash on my Android phone or tablet (or on the iPad or iPhone that I used to have).

[7ECA]

On a recent ferry flight from Buttonville to Pitt Meadows, with three other 172s, I brought along my Aera 500 GPS. For whatever reason, the navigation data was screwed up, and all it would show in Canada were VORs and NDBs, no airports, or airspace. Pretty much useless, other than being able to figure out what town/lake/river you were over.

Another pilot had an iPad mini and Foreflight, and it was a great resource throughout the trip, being able to pull up airport data, METARs/TAFs, route information, weather radar, etc. Absolutely invaluable, and as soon as I can, I'll be purchasing an iPad and Foreflight. As for keeping Foreflight up to date, $149/year is quite reasonable. Whereas keeping the Garmin's databases updated would amount to $50 every 28 days (for the nav data), which would be 13 updates at $50/each = $650/year. Sure you can get the yearly subscription, which is roughly $350.

You either spend ~$600 on an iPad, or ~$600 on a Garmin GPS. In the long run Foreflight is cheaper.

[AirFrame]

You either spend ~$600 on an iPad, or ~$600 on a Garmin GPS. In the long run Foreflight is cheaper.

Or $300 on an Android tablet. And FltPlan Go is free. Cheapest in the long run.

[sky_hi]

Thanks for the replies, thus far. I appreciate the inside and views from all sides.

Curious as to if anyone has actually used the Jeppesen navdata for canada and is it comparable to nav canada vnc, etc.

Does fltplan or Foreflight have a digital cfs yet?

[CpnCrunch]

I've been using AirNavPro on Android for a few years, and overall it is very good. However it isn't as reliable as anything from Garmin.

- There's a bug in Android 4.1 and 4.2 on Samsung devices that causes your SD card to get corrupted every few weeks when using certain SD cards. If you have installed AirNavPro (or any of its data) on the SD card, you're screwed - you basically have to reinstall it from scratch.
- Android has a very low memory limit of about 48 or 64MB per process, which can result in crashes. If you try installing the 2014 openstreetmap data on AirNavPro you'll see that it crashes all the time, presumably because the maps just take up more memory than Android will give you. iOS on the other hand lets you use the full 1 or 2GB of RAM.
- AirNavPro is incredibly slow on Android. This started happening after an update last year. It takes a very long time drawing the airspace, compared to an ipad.
- Some of the controlled airspace is wrong (e.g. above Sechelt). I told the developers about it a year ago and they said it would be fixed, but it hasn't so far. In fact there haven't been ANY updates to AirNavPro for about a year.
- My Galaxy Note has a known issue with the GPS antenna that causes it to sometimes become loose. My GPS just stopped working completely, and I had to take the phone apart and reseat the antenna.
- Sometimes my GPS just craps out for no apparent reason (ALWAYS in the plane). I'm guessing that sometimes it just doesn't get a good signal because of the metal cockpit, perhaps due to having a tiny internal GPS antenna.

I'd say an ipad is probably a bit more reliable, although occasionally you have to reboot the ipad due to everything running slow (killing all apps doesn't help). Also, iOS is fairly buggy and Apple isn't very good at fixing bugs. The only reason that most apps seem to work reliably on the ipad is because developers spend so much effort working around iOS bugs. Also, during every iOS release Apple tends to add more bugs or at least change how things work so that developers have to scramble to make their apps work. Given that AirNavPro are so slow at updating, I would guess that there might be problems using it on iOS 8 (I haven't tried yet).

Also bear in mind that your ipad might not be very readable in direct sunlight (Android devices with AMOLED displays are a bit better).

Due to the number of times my phone has crapped out during flights, I'm thinking of getting a Garmin 795 next year. I'm just waiting to see if Garmin releases a new version in the next few months.

Oh, and you don't need to pay $650 a year to keep your Garmin device updated. Things like terrain don't tend to change every year, and if the airspace hasn't changed in the area you fly then you probably don't need to update it. Here is pricing:

https://fly.garmin.com/fly-garmin/aviat ... cycles.jsp

[AirFrame]

Thanks for the replies, thus far. I appreciate the inside and views from all sides.

Curious as to if anyone has actually used the Jeppesen navdata for canada and is it comparable to nav canada vnc, etc.

Does fltplan or Foreflight have a digital cfs yet?

Foreflight has the complete CFS, believe. FltPlan Go has a portion of it, in that it has the CFS pages for the airports it has. The one downside to FltPlan Go is that it doesn't have all airports... Smaller or grass strip airports are left out.

[snoopy]

I have some strong feelings on this topic, but am in agreement with 5x5 regarding choosing the best (available) tool for the job. Sometimes this involves a degree of acceptance, and a change in mind set.

Yes, Foreflight has CFS, WAS and CAP - you can print the applicable pages for handy reference, or bookmark them in order of need. You can also annotate IFR plates - useful for highlighting important info - cold temp corrections for example. Plates on maps feature is particularly awesome, especially if you're a "visual" person.

If you're a pilot that flies a variety of equipment (IFR, VFR, floats, bush etc.) there is currently no other GPS option that will allow you to have proper (current) marine charts, topo charts, VNC, IFR charts/plates plus all the necessary US/Canadian airport reference data in one unit. Yes the full Foreflight subscription is expensive, but so are Garmin/Jeppesen (air & marine) data subscriptions - in fact the latter are more so if you want to have absolutely everything.

This is from a post I made on another forum, which is a bit out of context but gives you an idea of one person's research process:

The geo-referenced plates in Foreflight are really awesome, and I did my US ATPL-H ride with the IFR plates overlayed on the VNC chart which helped immensely with situational awareness while swapping plates/airports and approaches in busy US airspace and poor wx. I gave Foreflight heck several times for not having this geo-reference capability in Canada and I'm pleased that they (or Nav Canada) have finally delivered this feature.

Instant weather while within in cellular coverage is a huge plus too. Can't afford the Sirius XM weather package right now.

As anti Apple as I am, I don't mind the ipad mini as a complement to my other techno gadgets, and I got the 128 GB Retina Cellular/Wifi version which was much more than $500 when I got it at initial release, particularly when you couldn't actually buy it anywhere Overall the package has been a good investment considering the lack of GPS alternatives. Wake up Garmin! I am able to continuously store all VFR/IFR data for Canada and the US with plenty of storage left for marine and other navigational data/apps.

I am running my rig with the XGPS-160 external GPS and that greatly improves position accuracy over the on-board GPS. There are other external GPS units but this one is WAAS capable and picks up GLONASS - plus I can use it with my Android phone apps too. The XGPS comes with a little rubber bootie that sticks fantastically to the plexiglass bubble in normal temps. We'll see how good it sticks at -40...

For a software developer I am very impressed with Foreflight's responsiveness, technical support and great customer service. They even took my scathing feedback regarding not being Android compatible with good grace, diplomacy and tact.

On initial glance flightplan go looks promising, but I'd like to see Nav Canada make the digitial IFR/VFR data available to everyone, as opposed to only one business that does not support any platform other than iOS. Aside from being unfair, it puts other developers at an insurmountable competitive disadvantage when it comes to providing any useful Canadian nav capability.



Cheers,
snoopy