AOPA Flight Planner Question

[gerryshartman]

The AOPA flight planner is generally a good capability for roughing out a flight before entering it in Foreflight in my experience. However, I have not found a way to have different altitudes for different segments of a flight. Two situations that arise often are to have one segment be lower to stay under class bravo and then increase altitude in the next segment once clear of the bravo, and the other is when I plan a VFR flight with an easterly (0-179 degree) heading for one segment and then need to head in a westerly (180-359 degree) heading for the second segment - this would necessitate changing from an odd+500 altitude to an even+500 altitude - I don't see any way to do that - the navlog panel is not editable, and the planner mode just asks for one cruising altitude for the whole flight. The only work around to synch with weather and winds aloft that I've found is to create 2 plans. Does anyone know if it is possible to have different segments in the plan use different altitudes?
Thanks in advance!!

 

[TCABM]

If you’re referring to the AOPA iflight planner, I don’t think it supports multiple cruise altitudes, but if sync’d with iFly EFB, you can edit the flight plan there to accept multiple cruise altitudes.

If I was a foreflight user, I’d be using the FF web planner instead of AOPAs, but that’s just me.

 

[RussR]

The AOPA flight planner is generally a good capability for roughing out a flight before entering it in Foreflight in my experience. However, I have not found a way to have different altitudes for different segments of a flight. Two situations that arise often are to have one segment be lower to stay under class bravo and then increase altitude in the next segment once clear of the bravo, and the other is when I plan a VFR flight with an easterly (0-179 degree) heading for one segment and then need to head in a westerly (180-359 degree) heading for the second segment - this would necessitate changing from an odd+500 altitude to an even+500 altitude - I don't see any way to do that - the navlog panel is not editable, and the planner mode just asks for one cruising altitude for the whole flight. The only work around to synch with weather and winds aloft that I've found is to create 2 plans. Does anyone know if it is possible to have different segments in the plan use different altitudes?
Thanks in advance!!

I'm interested - what advantages do you see with planning a flight first though AOPA, then rebuilding it in Foreflight (as opposed to just doing it all in FF)? Does AOPA have some features you like better than FF?

 

[M20K]

Just got an email that AOPA's version of iFlightPlanner is about to get some upgrades.

And I agree that if you're a FF user, you're probably going to want to do the Briefing in FF to have everything up to date. I guess if you like iFlightPlanner, there's no reason you can't do all your planning there, then just Cut & Paste into the FF Website.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

The AOPA flight planner is generally a good capability for roughing out a flight before entering it in Foreflight in my experience.

Why not just start with ForeFlight? You can plan flights as far into the future as you want. What are you doing in the AOPA flight planner that's different than ForeFlight?

However, I have not found a way to have different altitudes for different segments of a flight.

IMO, that doesn't fit into the category of "roughing out" any more. I don't think you can do that in most flight planning software, it's definitely a more advanced feature.

 

[TheBadgerPilot]

I've never used AOPA's flight planner so can't speak to that, but you can use the save routes feature of ForeFlight to build a flyway route with the altitudes programmed and save it. Then, all you have to do is drop in your departure airport and the route afterward. I've done this with all of the Chicago flyway routes and it works beautifully.