Foreflight feature request...

cowman

cowman

Final Approach
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Cowman
I dunno if this is the best place to put this out there or not... maybe I should email them directly. Hopefully someone who is involved with it is watching...

What I'm looking for is a better way to display weather information along a route for VFR pilots. Right now if you want to view METARS data for a field you have to either from the map hold you finger down on that airport, select "more" next to it, then "DETAILS" then go down to METAR... the TAF/MOS forecast is also on another tab. This isn't too bad if I'm trying to just check out one place.

However, when planning a long cross country I usually want to see weather at a bunch of different fields and any TAF information I can get. This process of viewing weather becomes cumbersome in FF because of all the dialogues you have to go through. One can view sky coverage or ceiling on the map but that only helps so much. A ceiling of 3000' broken would probably be a "go" for me while a condition of 3000' broken 1000' scattered probably wouldn't be. I need more information than just ceiling.

What I'd like is either to put FF in a mode on the VFR chart where tapping on an airport brings up a dialogue with METAR/TAF data in one tap.... or something similar without a special mode using force touch to differentiate it.

Alternately, maybe just a button that will spit out something like a weather briefing with weather data for fields within x miles of my route, although I prefer the first option more I think.


Oh also, you've probably already heard this one but please please please enable the AHRS/synthetic vision display on the "mobile" version for the phone. The 6/6s plus phones are ideal for this use... even if it has to go full screen that's fine.
 
cowman said:
Oh also, you've probably already heard this one but please please please enable the AHRS/synthetic vision display on the "mobile" version for the phone. The 6/6s plus phones are ideal for this use... even if it has to go full screen that's fine.
Click to expand...

The Stratus Horizon app works on the ithingies...
 
Not exactly what your wanting but you can set it up to where when you select an airport the metars tab is the first to display.
 
Email them directly. They're very responsive.
 
I would like to throw one in the hat if your contacting them. It would be nice to have the vfr flyways auto enter into the route like you can do with the runway patterns. As it is now I hand draw as close as possible and save all the different options. It's kind of a hassle for something that can be easily integrated.
 
Sounds like what you get if you get an online briefing from LMFS. You give it your route and it gives you all the TAFs along your route, highlighting the window when you are projected to pass through each TAFs forecast (based on your departure time, route and enroute speed).
 
Why don't you just enter the route you want to fly, press the "sent to" button, click "file and brief", and then click "brief". Then you can look at the list of TAFs along your route.
 
I'll throw one into the hat while we're at it. When diverting and searching for airports, It'd be nice to be able to search for airports by fuel price. For example, have a slider so it only shows airports with fuel prices of $5.00 or less, and then I could move that slider as desired. This way I don't have to see every single airport and I can only look at airports in the price range I want.
 
Just be careful what you ask for. My Android phone has gotten so intuitive that all I have to do is look at it to get it to do something I didn't want it to do.
 
simtech said:
Not exactly what your wanting but you can set it up to where when you select an airport the metars tab is the first to display.
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This. The feature OP wants can already be selected in the settings dialog.
 
Brad Z said:
Look for the REC button on the map page. You can upload your ground track to other apps like google earth.
Click to expand...

so it wont display your track on the screen as you fly? (if not, that is my request)
 
cowman said:
What I'm looking for is a better way to display weather information along a route for VFR pilots. Right now if you want to view METARS data for a field you have to either from the map hold you finger down on that airport, select "more" next to it, then "DETAILS" then go down to METAR... the TAF/MOS forecast is also on another tab. This isn't too bad if I'm trying to just check out one place.
Click to expand...

I normally select Ceiling, Surface Wind or some other weather info in the dropdown and then every airport that has a METAR will display the appropriate symbol over it. Then if you just tap on it once, it immediately opens the METAR page for that airport.

Would that be something you're looking for?
 
I like Flight Category as a quick-look since an airport can still be IFR without a ceiling.

I also usually turn on Flight Cat and then follow my route on the map and add all the airports with a METAR to my favorites (I wish there was a way to visualize on the map the aerodromes that report a TAF). Then the morning of my flight, I wake up and the first thing I do is scroll down my faves to see if anything is amiss. Then I proceed with all due diligence.

I'd like a way to visualize TAFs or MOS on the map with a time slider. Even better, use my flight planned speeds and show me the predicted weather (same stuff - flight cat, ceiling, vis, etc) along the route at a glance. I can imagine the amount of problems associated with this, but clever engineers could find compromises or ways around them. 'Twould be very cool.
 
Silvaire said:
Just be careful what you ask for. My Android phone has gotten so intuitive that all I have to do is look at it to get it to do something I didn't want it to do.
Click to expand...


Got a laugh. Nicely done.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
scottd said:
Can't provide the specifics, but I think you'll really like a new feature in ForeFlight that will be released later this year.
Click to expand...

Aw, come on Scott. That's not fair! :D

Look forward to it.
 
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