VFR Charts

RalphInCA

RalphInCA

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RalphInCA
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Back in the 80s, when I first got started in aviation, there were charts available that were specifically designed for VFR Pilots. They were a competitor to the FAA sectionals. Very colorful, easy to read.

Anyone know what I am referring to? Are they still available?
 
There were bit VFR & IFR versions available, but I found them awkward to use, rather a lot of pages to turn and always having to look at the front for which page came next.

Don't recall the name, though.
 
Ron Levy said:
I remember them -- they came in a spiral-bound volume. IIRC, the company folded some years ago.
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Air Chart Systems. I think the 2012-2013 was the last edition.

It wasn't perfect, since the pagination was a little awkward and didn't line up with borders of the NOS charts. But for a coast-to-coast trip it was easier to keep two spiral-bound books organized than a satchel-full of loose, folded charts. Even after the advent of E-charts I thought it was a good backup.
 
Pilawt said:
Air Chart Systems. I think the 2012-2013 was the last edition.

It wasn't perfect, since the pagination was a little awkward and didn't line up with borders of the NOS charts. But for a coast-to-coast trip it was easier to keep two spiral-bound books organized than a satchel-full of loose, folded charts.
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...but not near as easy as ForeFlight on an iPad, although I won't disagree with:
Even after the advent of E-charts I thought it was a good backup.
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the howie keefe books, used them for years until foreflight came along.

they weren't just VFR. The IFR atlases were great too.
 
Fore flight put the paper people ,pretty much out of business. Air chart folded about a year ago.
 
Howie Keefe made a funky VFR chart book of his own design for a while, but he switched to just first binding WAC charts into one book and then later a two-volume bound sectionals for the entire country. He also bound the LO enroutes into volume. The updating was somewhat funky as well but many of us carried these books at least as backups.

I remember having a disussion with Howie's wife about him laying out the original version of his charts all over the pool table in their house. Howie was a neat guy to talk too.

Jeppesen tried a few years ago to have their own VFR chart. They weren't a bad presentation. In fact, I kind of liked the one around here becuase they were oriented parallel to the coast so my route of flight pretty much fit on one chart.

Of course, the electronic charting really killed both ideas commercially.
 
RalphInCA said:
Back in the 80s, when I first got started in aviation, there were charts available that were specifically designed for VFR Pilots. They were a competitor to the FAA sectionals. Very colorful, easy to read.

Anyone know what I am referring to? Are they still available?
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Here in Michigan we get a nice VFR sectional of only our state in the mail from the DOT every year for free (more concise than the FAA version that covers a larger area) . Not sure if this is what you are talking about.

Just curious do all states print these for pilots with addresses in their own state?
 
Whatever they were - seems they are no longer available.

Foreflight is great, and works very well for my needs.
 
Jeppesen tried to revive this idea with their VFR+GPS charts a few years ago. They are very good, and perfect for VFR flying, but they didn't catch on and got dropped.

With iPads and such now, it's almost a moot point. :(

Here's an example of what they looked like:

Jepp-VFR-GPS-EUG-1024.jpg
 
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Ah...a map of Eugene with all the places of interest marked in red.
There's not a mark on it.

Howie Keefe's company by the way was Air Chart Systems. His nephew or someone took it over but it didn't last too much longer.

Paper charts have pretty much died in the last few years universally. I remember when I bought my property in NC in 2004 or so I went out and bought paper road maps of the area but I haven't hardly used them since I started carrying the iPhone.

There's a scene in "The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" where the military guys are pouring over a map...

This blue line is their line of furthest advance. These X's are our machine gun emplacements.

What are these red dots?

Those are Mobil stations.

Nobody under the age of 50 gets that joke.
 
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olasek said:
Garmin Pilot's VFR vector maps look very similar.
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Yes, I'm a big fan of Pilot's vector maps...on my iPad they are my primary VFR navigation method. Much simpler than the sectional view, and without all the extra information. And the text is always oriented correctly, even flying southbound in track up mode! :yes:
 
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