Says Competition, Other Commitments Led To Stoppage

It was a promising technology, with many positive reviews from users... and as recently as last year, it impressed the ANN staff by offering flight planning software for less than many other similar products on the market. In the end, however, there just wasn't enough support to keep AirPlan afloat -- forcing Razor's Edge Software founder Dean Wilkinson to cease online sales of his product, effective immediately.

Wilkinson told ANN he started working on AirPlan in 1997, with hopes of creating a successful business selling flight planning software to pilots for less than the price of other products on the market. Wilkinson sold the first copy of AirPlan online in January 1998.

"Over the years I have worked to try to make AirPlan as useful and valuable as I could," said Wilkinson in a letter to AirPlan customers. "This has been a long and time consuming effort on my part. Given that I have held a full-time job as an electrical engineer for the entire time that I have been working on AirPlan, it has been difficult to devote the time, energy, and money to promoting AirPlan and working on it that it probably needed to be able to reach enough customers to be self-sustaining."

Wilkinson also cited the limited market for flight-planning software, competition from other vendors and free flight planning resources, and the difficulty of obtaining worldwide navigation data at a reasonable cost as other factors in his decision to pull AirPlan from the market. Only 17 news customers bought the software so far in 2006 -- and too few existing customers have renewed subscriptions to cover his fixed costs.

Wilkinson says he will leave his website up until the end of 2006, to provide online update support to current subscribers. After that time, he invites existing customers to contact him at his email address for assistance. CD-ROM updates for current subscribers will also continue, Wilkinson says, until their update period expires. By December, those updates will only cover the Americas --- with the exception of Canada.

"... I have been unable to get digital data for due to copyright restrictions," said Wilkinson. "I contacted NavCanada about licensing their data, and while I received and initial response saying that I could get data, subsequent inquiries have gone without response from them."

"I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this causes any of you, and greatly appreciate the positive support that so many of you have given me over the years," he added. "Once again, I plan on continuing to make database updates available into the future for anyone who wishes to buy a CD from me, and all update subscriptions will be honored to the completion of their term."

FMI: www.razorsedgesoft.com/airplan/index.htm