Cool New Feature Lets You "Fly" Your Flight Plan, View TFR's, MOA's, Terrain, Etc.

By ANN Correspondent Juan Jimenez

RMS Software Inc., makes of Flitesoft™ flight planing software, Flitesoft Express™ flight planning and moving map software and Vista™ have released an update to Flitesoft which includes a cool new feature named "Virtual Flight."

If you're like me, you've probably wished you could "fly" your flight plan in real time with the latest TFR and other airspace data. The advantages of being able to do this are obvious. If you're going to be flying into situations where you might run into trouble if you're not careful, seeing them on the ground allows you to at a minimum be aware of them, and perhaps even change your route to avoid them. If this would not be an improvement towards the problems of insufficient situational awareness, what would be?

What RMS has done is implement this very feature into their update of Flitesoft. Once the flight plan is defined, selecting Virtual Flight from the menu displays a window that shows a three-dimensional view of the terrain and airspace along the route. You can then "fly" the route, pan and zoom at will, "climb" or "descend" and basically take a look at all the airspace details and other information along the planned route of the flight.

The update to Flitesoft that includes this and other features is being released on the company's web site concurrent with their standard 28-day update cycle.

FMI: www.rmstek.com