Evaluating ForeFlight on road trips

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
14,210
Location
Midlothian, TX
Display Name
3Green
Home Airfield
KJWY - Mid-Way Regional
I had reason to make a last minute drive to Houston to meet an employee after his flight to DFW was canceled by the morning storms here. So I fired up FF and turned on the radar layer to see how it compared to what I saw out the window, having not flown near thunderstorms with it before.

I learned that it was highly accurate. While I know it shouldn't be used tactically, it matched what I saw, in rain and clear areas, and in intensity levels, very closely.

I also learned that yellow areas should be avoided just as much as red cores. I was getting intense and frequent lightning in yellow shades areas. I understand about NEXRAD update delays, and these storms were moving away from me...

Green had an intensity level that required intermittent wipers. Yellow required full on.

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I've used garmin pilot to avoid storms while on road trips. Sure, there are other apps that show your position relative to radar images, but I already have GP, and it works really well.

I pull off somewhere and eat before getting to the point where the worst of it will cross the highway. MUCH better than trying to drive through it.
 
When I was still working for a living, I used my 496/XM on job sites far more than I did in the air. Especially when pouring concrete in the south in the summer (pop up t-storms).

XM was consistently 10 to 15 minutes behind reality. i.e. the storm would be leaving our area as XM was showing it just getting to us.

Things can change a lot in 10 to 15 minutes.
 
FYI a fun little exercise - display the road map, and plot a route consisting of a series of waypoints along bends in the road (works best obviously along relatively straight, long interstates) and watch it cycle through the waypoints.
 
nddons said:
We're you using 3G to get that real time display?
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Probably 4G LTE considering it says LTE at the top. Although I'm quite interested in how he got his apps to run upside down.
 
EdFred said:
Probably 4G LTE considering it says LTE at the top. Although I'm quite interested in how he got his apps to run upside down.
Click to expand...

Track up doesn't change the map orientation IIRC.
 
EdFred said:
Probably 4G LTE considering it says LTE at the top. Although I'm quite interested in how he got his apps to run upside down.
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Correct (4G). And track up mode.

Need to try this same exercise side by side with 4G LTE, XM, and ADSB. I did not see the usual six to ten minute lag. What I observed was highly accurate compare to what I saw out the window... I would like to determine how much additional lag the XM upload/download process adds. My guess is that the ADSB and 4G/wifi feed would be more current / have less latency than the XM feed.
 
Troy,

We have XM on the 496 installed in 55WB.... anytime you want to come up and experiment some, let me know and we'll see what we can discover.
 
I have used it multiple times on the road and love the weather display. It's nice to know your about to hit some extreme weather when your pulling a 14K pound trailer. It rocks and is my number one app on the iPad, iPhone and iTouch. The accuracy really improves when you use an external GPS unit as well. I use the DUAL bluetooth unit with my IPAD while in the airplane.
 
My last "road trip" was two years ago before buying my iPad. But I've used the radar display on FF to make go/no go decisions when leading hikes and when deciding whether I have time to get in a bike ride by myself. Very useful app.
 
I frequently use ForeFlight also on commercial flights. Right before departure I'll look up the filed flight plan, filed altitude, and airspeed from flightaware.com and plug it into ForeFlight. I've got all of the routing in front of me, and it's a great way to pass the time and know where you are on commercial flights without a moving map. It's also fun to predict a plane's turn upon reaching a VOR, and feel the airliner actually make the turn as predicted (assuming a new routing wasn't received in the air).

I see also TangoWhiskey's using iOS7 beta 1. ForeFlight seems to run fine on it. Have you encountered issues with any other aviation apps? I've got "Cockpit", a simulated PFD, that crashes on launch.
 
EdFred said:
Careful what you say, or I'll have someone who can help you shot.
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Either you're:

1- Drunk
2- Having a stroke
3- Delirious from lack of REM
4- Hanging out too much is one of the jerk threads
:D
 
Jaybird180 said:
Either you're:

1- Drunk
2- Having a stroke
3- Delirious from lack of REM
4- Hanging out too much is one of the jerk threads
:D
Click to expand...

I guess you never saw Shawshank Redemption.
 
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