Approach charts on the iPad are amazing, but there are lots of other useful, fun and downright weird flying apps out there too.
ForeFlight: $74.99 a year Another remarkable integrated preflight briefing, moving map and aviation data-gathering product. ForeFlight has a staggering array of features, including Nexrad, metars and TAFs, approach charts, taxiway diagrams, IFR approach and VFR charts (all geo-referenced), flight planning and filing, and moving-map navigation tools.
Laminar Research: $9.99 X-Plane, one of the most popular flight simulation games for the PC, has come to the iPad, and it’s a blast. With no mouse or keyboard, you control the action by touching the screen and tilting and turning the iPad. A great way for you to pass time waiting for passengers in the FBO or for the kids to pass time in the back seat on those long cross-country flights.
Aviation Data Systems: Free/$1.99 A no-frills app (in the developer’s own words), My Radar simply lets you see animated radar images anywhere in the lower 48. A great, quick way to see what the convective activity is on your route of flight before you log in for the official briefing. The free version is ad-supported. The $1.99 app is ad-free.
Gregory Gineys: $1.99 At first blush, this app is just hilarious. It essentially turns your iPad into a $499 to $800 flashlight. Funny enough to spend $1.99, sure, but the funniest thing is that this app actually works and makes sense. You get not only white light but also a greenish tint for using with night-vision goggles, blue and red lights, a yellow SOS signal and a strobe.
Moving Map with Charts; Heikki Julkenen: $19.99 For pilots who prefer scanned maps, SkyChartsPro offers scanned VFR and IFR en route moving map charts that are downloadable at home or on the road for use in the cockpit. It also has some weather, metars and TAFs that you can access by clicking right on the map icon. This app lacks the features of WingX Pro7 or ForeFlight, but its price lets pilots get into the moving map game for a lot less.
(and more); Co-developers: $9.99 This one is just what it sounds like, an iPad-based FAR/AIM that puts volumes of information at your fingertips. It’s nicely indexed, easy to search and blazing fast. And it actually, well, makes the FARs kind of fun. Don’t tell. A must for CFIs, pro pilots and FAA types.
Airguide Publications: $9.95 to $19.95 per month As a kid learning to fly, Airguide’s little hard-binder airport info book was a lifesaver. The latest, Flight Guide iEFB, uses the iPad to display its goodies: moving maps, scanned IFR en route and VFR charts, airport information pages (of course) and more, all depending on the plan. It’s a bit pricey, but solid, fast running, easy to use and dependable.
Zinio: Free! Zinio’s iPad app is pretty close to reason enough to own an iPad, and I’m not just saying that because it’s the only way to get Flying on the Apple device. Zinio is fast, colorful, supremely easy to navigate and quick to search. Flip through pages like you’re reading a paper magazine; view new forms of interactive content, including links to the Internet, music, text and video that play right there on the page. Zinio, of course, requires a separate subscription to the magazine, though you can buy single issues too.
Hilton Software: $99.99 one year subscription; additional $99 subscription from Seattle Avionics for geo-referenced charts This awesome app features nearly a dozen aviation functions, including killer digital maps; geo-referenced approach charts (so you see your little airplane on the approach); STARS, SIDS, airport diagrams; great integrated weather; DUATS integration for flight planning and flight plan filing; TFRs; special-use airspace; terrain; and much, much more. In short, WingX Pro7 gives pilots just about everything we could want.
