Adds Broad Range Of Next-Gen Flight Planning Solutions And Avionics Integration
ForeFlight is continuing its momentum in Business Aviation with a raft of enhancements to its award-winning integrated flight application and advanced flight planning capabilities. ForeFlight enables owners and operators of high-performance business aviation aircraft to compute flight plans with spot-on flight time and fuel burn calculations, brief and file flight plans in seconds, receive automated clearances via PDC and weather via D-ATIS, and make flight operations more efficient with Trip Assistant.
“We raised the bar and transformed ForeFlight’s product suite into a high-powered, next-generation integrated flight deck and flight planning application for business aviation,” said Tyson Weihs, ForeFlight co-founder and CEO. “Our flight planning supercomputer quickly delivers accurate calculations to ForeFlight Mobile and ForeFlight Web using quality-controlled aircraft performance data, factors in load and environmental conditions like wind and temps aloft, delivers pre-departure clearance information via SMS and email, offers a global door-to-door trip planner with automatic fuel stop selection, and delivers flight operations a shared view of all flight plans created by company pilots with integrated flight status information.”
ForeFlight’s Advanced Flight Planning offers customers an end-to-end solution for high-performance flight planning, as well as charts, documents, weather, briefing, filing, and flying.
ForeFlight uses aircraft profiles built from complete manufacturer climb, cruise and descent book value performance data to deliver the industry’s most accurate flight time and fuel burn calculations for all weight, temperature and wind conditions. Hundreds of built-in profiles are available for the most popular turbine aircraft from Bombardier, Cessna, Dassault, Embraer, Gulfstream, and more, and can be set up in a matter of seconds.
ForeFlight’s high-fidelity performance data, along with route optimization, fuel load planning, and effortless scenario planning, helps pilots and flight departments lower costs and operate more efficiently. ForeFlight’s global routing engine analyzes current and forecasted wind and temperature data, aircraft performance capabilities, and recent ATC history to offer a comprehensive list of route options, even for airports without previously flown routes. In addition, EUROCONTROL-validated routes are created in a matter of seconds.
ForeFlight now offers customers mobile Pre-Departure Clearance (PDC) and Digital Automated Terminal Information Service (D-ATIS). The PDC service, in partnership with Satcom Direct, automatically delivers via text and email departure clearance information at over 70 US airports, simplifying operations and reducing frequency congestion.
PDCs are official text clearances issued for US IFR flight plans, and include the filed route, the cleared altitude, transponder code, departure frequency, and any special instructions. A PDC replaces (and is the same as) receiving a verbal clearance from Clearance Delivery.
“Customers who have flown with the new PDC and D-ATIS features never again want to fly without them,” says Tyson Weihs, co-founder and CEO of ForeFlight. “These two valuable tools make flight and avionics setup efficient by eliminating a set of radio communications, they reduce controller workload, and help get the aircraft to the runway faster, which improves on-time performance.”
PDC and D-ATIS are included – at no additional charge – in ForeFlight’s Performance Plus and Business Performance subscription plans.
ForeFlight also introduced Trip Assistant, a simple-to-use trip and fuel stop planning tool for anyone involved in mission planning that quickly computes door-to-door trip time.
“Trip Assistant started as an internal project to help our flight department and executive assistants more quickly answer a question we ask on every flight: when do we need to leave our homes or offices to get somewhere on time,” said Tyson Weihs, co-founder and CEO of ForeFlight. “Powered by our best-in-class flight planning engine, Trip Assistant is a tool that any aircraft user - assistants, flight support staff, passengers, and pilots - can use to quickly compute total trip time, even when fuel stops are required.”
Within a single web page view, Trip Assistant computes total trip time, factoring in drive time, flight times using historical and forecast winds, and fuel stops to create a detailed itinerary showing exactly when to leave in order to arrive on time at the final destination.
Trip Assistant allows for forward and backward planning by setting a desired departure time or arrival time. Customers can enter the departure and destination location using business names, place names, or street addresses, and Trip Assistant searches for and displays the nearest suitable airports.
Additionally, Trip Assistant features a built-in Fuel Stop Advisor that factors in the aircraft’s performance and automatically suggests a number of proposed stopovers to help minimize trip time and fuel costs. Fuel Stop Advisor allows the planner to select the criteria for determining the best stops such as max aircraft range, max leg time or max leg distance. With a configured account, pilots can also view their personal contract jet fuel prices at each stop.
Trip Assistant is included – at no additional charge – in ForeFlight’s Performance Plus and Business Performance plans.
ForeFlight supports two-way flight plan transfer with G3000, G1000NXi, and any Garmin Flight Stream equipped aircraft.
Customers who have datalink services through Satcom Direct or Honeywell can register their aircraft with ForeFlight and receive flight plan recall numbers within the app. FMS Flight Plan Uplink through ForeFlight helps customers quickly and accurately load flight plans into the aircraft’s Flight Management System.
Sentry is a compact, next-generation portable ADS-B receiver built for ForeFlight. Sentry enables the display of essential FIS-B weather, flight information, traffic, and backup attitude, and also has a Carbon Monoxide monitor and alarm, a 12-hour battery, and a high-capacity data card for Weather Replay and storage.
Sentry’s built-in GPS supports four Global Navigation Satellite Systems - GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, and BeiDou - and can track three constellations concurrently for reassuring redundant location tracking. Sentry’s multi-constellation support coupled with ForeFlight’s robust moving map capabilities provides a powerful backup solution when there are unexpected system outages.
“We want every ForeFlight pilot flying with the benefits ADS-B has to offer. With Sentry, ForeFlight pilots have a powerful suite of capabilities available at a compelling price that will improve situational awareness and safety in the cockpit,”said Weihs.
Retailing at $499 USD, Sentry is the most affordable full-featured off-the-shelf portable ADS-B In solution available on the market.
(Image provided with ForeFlight news release)
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