I am not sure its well known, but while most pilots are aware Jepp has an Ipad product called Mobile Flight Deck (which costs alot more than what Foreflight does) I have met few who have heard of the red haired child of Jeppesen family which is an Ipad app/EFB called mobile flight deck VFR. Cost is $49 a year and a free 30 day trial is available.
I have been using it for a about a year and a half, and the latest version 2.0 which just came out has a weather forecasting feature that I have not seen elsewhere that is of particular interest to pilots flying primarily VFR. What it does is provide a color coded overlay on your route, which you can toggle on or off, and adjust for different time periods, 0 hours to about 3 days out , which shows the prognosis, for a selected time period, for VFR conditions. Press on the map on or off the route and it will create a "TAF" of that point for periods of time almost 3 days out, does not matter if its on/off airport or field has or has not a TAF. Will tell you estimated predicted surface wind, ceiling and visibility and possible precip interpolated from all sorts of data for that spot. I used that that feature just this past week in planing a business trip down to Naples. was trying to figure out Monday if I could make a late morning meeting time Wednesday or would need to go in the afternoon because of the typical northern Florida early AM winter time low fog we often, but not always get. (As it happened, the app Monday said VFR Wed AM except for some isolated areas at 1300 Z and the reality was pretty good, the iso areas depicted were there, as were the VFR areas too.)
Normally I might get this information from Usairsports (which requires looking up every location along the intended route separately) or this weather map from NOAA ( http://www.nws.noaa.gov/mdl/forecast/graphics/MAV/ ) which shows the whole USA and does not show your intended route of flight, and its a little tricky to use. (Not very, but a little)
Some pluses and minuses about the Jepp VFR app:
Pluses
- map is vector drawn and uses Jepps old VFR+GPS paper chart appearance, which I happened to like for their clarity.
- if you are going South and you have track up, all the text will be right side up.
- map database has the entire USA, and since its vector driven, needs only 1.5 GB.
- Navlog imports winds and calculates ground speed for time and date of departure
- airport info, like runways, frequencies,etc, is all press on the airport and select what you need
- zoom in on the airport and most will show taxiways. Your position on the taxiway as a moving map is shown
-has a current METAR overlay
-downloads text NOTAMs and weather data
- in the air provides entry to controlled/special use airspace warning
- has the IFR waypoints on the airways
- in flight calculates ETE, etc
On the not so hot side, it does not yet have a weather radar overlay for use on the ground or if you are using a product to bring SXM or ADSB weather or traffic data in, does not yet have the ability to display this.
For this reason, I use both Foreflight and Jepp VFR. $49 a year, what the heck.
Flying mag has a review here:
http://www.flyingmag.com/avionics-g...en-mobile-flightdeck-vfr-adds-weather-feature
which includes screen shots
30 day free full functional trial from here:
https://ww1.jeppesen.com/main/corporate/m-fc-signup.jsp?isFreeTrialButtonClicked=true
I have been using it for a about a year and a half, and the latest version 2.0 which just came out has a weather forecasting feature that I have not seen elsewhere that is of particular interest to pilots flying primarily VFR. What it does is provide a color coded overlay on your route, which you can toggle on or off, and adjust for different time periods, 0 hours to about 3 days out , which shows the prognosis, for a selected time period, for VFR conditions. Press on the map on or off the route and it will create a "TAF" of that point for periods of time almost 3 days out, does not matter if its on/off airport or field has or has not a TAF. Will tell you estimated predicted surface wind, ceiling and visibility and possible precip interpolated from all sorts of data for that spot. I used that that feature just this past week in planing a business trip down to Naples. was trying to figure out Monday if I could make a late morning meeting time Wednesday or would need to go in the afternoon because of the typical northern Florida early AM winter time low fog we often, but not always get. (As it happened, the app Monday said VFR Wed AM except for some isolated areas at 1300 Z and the reality was pretty good, the iso areas depicted were there, as were the VFR areas too.)
Normally I might get this information from Usairsports (which requires looking up every location along the intended route separately) or this weather map from NOAA ( http://www.nws.noaa.gov/mdl/forecast/graphics/MAV/ ) which shows the whole USA and does not show your intended route of flight, and its a little tricky to use. (Not very, but a little)
Some pluses and minuses about the Jepp VFR app:
Pluses
- map is vector drawn and uses Jepps old VFR+GPS paper chart appearance, which I happened to like for their clarity.
- if you are going South and you have track up, all the text will be right side up.
- map database has the entire USA, and since its vector driven, needs only 1.5 GB.
- Navlog imports winds and calculates ground speed for time and date of departure
- airport info, like runways, frequencies,etc, is all press on the airport and select what you need
- zoom in on the airport and most will show taxiways. Your position on the taxiway as a moving map is shown
-has a current METAR overlay
-downloads text NOTAMs and weather data
- in the air provides entry to controlled/special use airspace warning
- has the IFR waypoints on the airways
- in flight calculates ETE, etc
On the not so hot side, it does not yet have a weather radar overlay for use on the ground or if you are using a product to bring SXM or ADSB weather or traffic data in, does not yet have the ability to display this.
For this reason, I use both Foreflight and Jepp VFR. $49 a year, what the heck.
Flying mag has a review here:
http://www.flyingmag.com/avionics-g...en-mobile-flightdeck-vfr-adds-weather-feature
which includes screen shots
30 day free full functional trial from here:
https://ww1.jeppesen.com/main/corporate/m-fc-signup.jsp?isFreeTrialButtonClicked=true
