The folks of Seattle Avionics gave ANN the first look at a new product that should significantly ease the chores of keeping one's charts up to date (a task that has come to have all the charm of watching paint dry...). A companion product for their impressive new Voyager Flight-Planner, SmartPlates is an on-demand chart resource that offers SIDs, STARs, airport runway and taxiway diagrams, minimums, and all manner of conventional approaches including ILS, LOC, GPS, RNAV, VOR, DME, NDB, LDA, SFD and MLS.

Using online resources, current charts are always available when you log on through the product and presented in digital format for viewing on-screen or printing. The program has an interesting way of organizing your need for appropriate charts. When you qualify a need for specific airports/areas, SmartPlates creates something it calls "Plate Packs." The Plate Packs are an organized collection of Approach and Departure Procedures plus Airport Diagrams and, in some cases, Minimums -- all applicable to the flight you specify. The charts they deliver, every procedure and diagram, is created by the FAA (pulled from databases online) and is LEGAL for in-flight use.

A SmartPlates Plate Pack is NOT the charts and procedures themselves... but the list that you created when you specified your flight needs -- this keeps file sizes down to a dull roar and your hardware requirements within reason. When you open a previously created Plate Pack, SmartPlates updates the entire list with the most recent charts and procedures, virtually guaranteeing that you have the latest info.

The Plate Packs may be accessed by themselves through SmartPlates or (quite conveniently) from Seattle Avionics' Flight-Planning program, Voyager. If you use Voyager, the program knows to add charts to the Plate Pack as it examines a planned route and eliminates the guess work of figuring out just what you might need. And, as previously noted, every time you open a Plate Pack, the program checks for the most current charts.

A quick perusal of SmartPlates found the menuing architecture to be very simple, and accompanied by plenty of prompts via convenient "wizards" that help neophytes (or, worse, a really dumb Editor-In-Chief) create their first Plate Packs. The program offers the ability to customize charts to mission requirements, and the high-resolution digital charts offer the ability to zoom in closely on minute details on charts (and print them out that way...) which is the just the thing to have when you're dealing with a complex procedure.

We're just getting started looking this over... but so far, our impressions are pretty positive... give us a few weeks of hard usage and we'll let you know if the first impression holds up as we fumble through, uh, work carefully with this program. Suffice it to say, though, that we're intrigued -- it sure is nice not to have to replace charts every month... a chore that we've truly come to loathe.

Seattle Avionics says that SmartPlates runs on a desktop or laptop PC and can also export files to a PDA running Pocket PC 2002, 2003 or Windows Mobile operating system. To use SmartPlates on a Pocket PC, though, you'll need 'SmartPlates for the Pocket PC', available as an option (be advised that the Pocket PC version does require the desktop/laptop version, though). More info to follow....

FMI: www.seattleavionics.com