Garmin Aera 500 screen

[DGP]

Even more fun when someone hands you a list of co ordinances and asks you to put them in while you are flying...real fun!!!  Talk about texting and driving...try doing that!!! Almost as bad as running an Agnav while spraying...low level...60mph...dodging trees!!!

[robottxt]

9 hours ago, DGP said:

Even more fun when someone hands you a list of co ordinances and asks you to put them in while you are flying...real fun!!!  Talk about texting and driving...try doing that!!! Almost as bad as running an Agnav while spraying...low level...60mph...dodging trees!!!

ForeFlight needs to be re skinned for the demands of day VFR low level ops. IMO 

[Saifan Pilot]

On 8/20/2021 at 6:29 PM, robottxt said:

ForeFlight needs to be re skinned for the demands of day VFR low level ops. IMO 

Works very well for day VFR low level ops. Not sure what you mean.

If anything it’s far superior to the Garmin aviation handhelds.

[robottxt]

10 hours ago, Saifan Pilot said:

Works very well for day VFR low level ops. Not sure what you mean.

If anything it’s far superior to the Garmin aviation handhelds.

Try loading a layer with 200,000+ waypoints.  Old garmins have no issue, foreflight yacks, you can't search them, and the waypoint fonts don't scale.    Old Gramins accept ALL Lat/Long formats UTMs.  Foreflight yacks at any none standard lat/long format and UTMs what now.....  Back of VTAs burried. CFS link for airports doesn't show VFR procedures if on preceding pages, have to search the PDF CFS, super pain.    Shall i go on........  Its does some things well, but needs to be polished. I doubt Boeing cares about utility operators. 

[Saifan Pilot]

On 8/24/2021 at 5:17 PM, robottxt said:

Try loading a layer with 200,000+ waypoints.  Old garmins have no issue, foreflight yacks, you can't search them, and the waypoint fonts don't scale.    Old Gramins accept ALL Lat/Long formats UTMs.  Foreflight yacks at any none standard lat/long format and UTMs what now.....  Back of VTAs burried. CFS link for airports doesn't show VFR procedures if on preceding pages, have to search the PDF CFS, super pain.    Shall i go on........  Its does some things well, but needs to be polished. I doubt Boeing cares about utility operators. 

• Not sure why you would want to load a layer with 200,000+ waypoints, however if you load it as user waypoints instead of layer, then all user waypoints are searchable. File limit is 200MB. Typical waypoint is around 510 characters in KML, this would equate to around 400k waypoints! However this an be increased tenfold if the file is saved as KMZ (Zipped KML) as it's compressed and can accommodate many more waypoints.
  I'm pretty sure Garmin devices were limited to 3000 user waypoints.
• ForeFlight supports all Lat/Lon formats, perhaps you didn't read the user manual but you can enter in decimal degrees or degrees and decimal minutes or degrees, minutes and seconds. Please refer to page 131.
  For example:
  for the coordinates N56° 06’ 47”/W103° 45’ 09” in various formats:
  o Degrees Minutes Seconds: 560647/-1034509
  o Degrees Decimal Minutes: 5606.78/-10345.14
  o Decimal Degrees: 56.11/-103.75
  Longitude must be 3 digits, so for example, longitude W98, you would type -098.
  Can also be entered with N/S/E/W prefixes as shown in examples below:
  o Degrees Minutes Seconds: N560647/W1034509
  o Degrees Decimal Minutes: N5606.78/W10345.14
  o Decimal Degrees: N56.11/W103.75
• For UTM, You can use UTM For Flight App, it converts and exports waypoint in UTM or OMNR formats to ForeFlight: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/utm-for-flight/id1241701167
• I find ForeFlight does most things very well. It's evolved dramatically over the last few years very often adding many useful features. Garmin is so far behind in their hand-helds. I've done countless jobs that would have been very tricky or sometimes impossible without ForeFlight. I even mapped forest fires with Foreflight track record and emailed the fire perimeter KML file on the fly to dispatch before we even landed. The absolutely loved that. Overlay of custom maps in Foreflight has permitted me to do GIS survey work, budworm surveys and use Alberta forestry maps in Foreflight instead of Avanza etc.. Not to mention overlay of Forestry unique grid systems for OMNR customized UTM grid, SOPFEU propriety Grid and Alberta's LSD Grid.

When not flying iPad is also great for reading books, watching movies playing games etc... It's so versatile.

I've recently added InReach mini to my iPad as source for GPS location and now can also communicate with customers on the job using InReach text messaging via satellites.

 

[Freefall]

Ive been using an ipad with foreflight since they added Canadian maps. Its great for most things but they have been stubbornly bad at implementing a decent crumb trail. It often doesnt work  and cuts out, I think foreflight needs cell service to make a trail and even then it isnt very detailed.
 

There is still no handy way to take a quick waypoint.   Nothing like holding a hover over a target then using one hand to zoom in then hold a spot to make a point….

Moving multiple crews to multiple landing pads you have to zoom really far in on the map to get your points to show up if there are multiple near the same place. If you do that and navigate to one, then zoom back out instead of the one you are navigating to staying visible it will disappear again and your track marker looks like it goes to nothing. 
 

I couldn't live without it at this point but I see why many pilots stick with Garmin. It depends what you sort of flying you do mostly.

[Saifan Pilot]

On 9/21/2021 at 12:25 PM, Freefall said:

Ive been using an ipad with foreflight since they added Canadian maps. Its great for most things but they have been stubbornly bad at implementing a decent crumb trail. It often doesnt work  and cuts out, I think foreflight needs cell service to make a trail and even then it isnt very detailed.
 

There is still no handy way to take a quick waypoint.   Nothing like holding a hover over a target then using one hand to zoom in then hold a spot to make a point….

Moving multiple crews to multiple landing pads you have to zoom really far in on the map to get your points to show up if there are multiple near the same place. If you do that and navigate to one, then zoom back out instead of the one you are navigating to staying visible it will disappear again and your track marker looks like it goes to nothing. 
 

I couldn't live without it at this point but I see why many pilots stick with Garmin. It depends what you sort of flying you do mostly.

Crumb trail stops when speed is low. I've asked them several times to make a switch to make it sensitive for helicopters but they just say they'll add it to feature requests.

To save a waypoint of your current location simply type D in the search bar and tap Enter, tap Save, Enter Name and tap Save again. Super easy and quick.

Yes, to see numerous waypoints that are close to eachother you need to zoom in. Garmin is the same.