Flight planning software

[bluesky175]

Dear community,

I currently fly a Cessna CJ in the heart of Europe and am looking for an efficient software solution to streamline my flight planning process. Manual planning has become quite cumbersome and I am keen to find a more automated approach.

During my research I came across RocketRoute and ForeFlight. However, before exploring these options further, I would be grateful to hear from the PPRUNE community about their experiences with these programs. In addition, if there are other recommended solutions that meet my needs, I would be grateful for your suggestions.

My main requirements include support for IFR operations and international flights at airports with mandatory handling. Which software meets these criteria and what additional features could they offer?

Your guidance would save me a lot of time and effort in researching and testing several demo accounts.

Thank you in advance and happy landings,
Damian

[ArrowFly]

Try autorouter.aero, it’s the best in Europe and it’s free.

[KAISERSOZE]

we were using rocketroute on myprevious company.
You can call them if you are stuck from a flp that doesn,t go through.
I did it a few times, from the cockpit on the ramp
Usefull

[dc9-32]

PM sent to you.

[His dudeness]

I use Foreflight and do have access to Rocketroute as well and I have autorouter.aero as well. NO software out there can cope with the absolute mess Eurocontrol and the morons in the national ATC units have created. I´d say 70% of the time the sw can create vialable routes in about 10% of the cases they will be suspended because of the activation of an area someplace. Eurocontrol - contrary to years ago - won´t help you at all any more.

The short answer is: give your flight planning to an independant planning service. This might be a few Francs or Euros per flight, but you have the backoffice support that you need these days because ATC don´t do their job (not the ATCOs, planners - RAD !) I´m flight planning since 1990 and I just put in my surrender in form of a contract to a flight planning provider.

I use the combination of Foreflight and LEON to serve my EFB & NCC needs (rwy performance, flight info files, dutytimes, currencies, ETS etcetc)

[Dave Gittins]

To slightly go off topic, I use SkyDemon for by VFRing from Redhill but when I've flown in the USA have used Foreflight. Even used it for creating flight plans in the mountainy bits of Colorado.

I don't have a current Foreflight subscription as I haven't been there for 18 months but I know they now include the Europe and the UK.

Has anybody tried it ? If I do go back to flying in the US of A and need a Foreflight, would it be worth adding the UK maps as well ?

[what next]

Originally Posted by Dave Gittins

Has anybody tried it ? If I do go back to flying in the US of A and need a Foreflight, would it be worth adding the UK maps as well ?

We use Foreflight since Jeppesen has shut down it's Jeppesen mobile flightdeck app earlier this year. Overall it offers a lot for a very reasonable amount of money. Especially if you can live with the free IFR charts from the various national AIPs. For many european countries VFR charts are also included in the basic subscription (see here: https://foreflight.com/europe/data/) but NOT for the UK and Gemany (where I am based). These have to be purchased separately, eg. 63Euos/year for the UK or 150 for all of Europe. Depending on how far you fly from Redhill this may cost you less than buying all the ICAO VFR charts that you require. Beware that running Foreflight on an iPad continuously in order to have your VFR chart ready all the time puts a heavy strain on the batteries, which may last only two hours. So you will need a connection to a power source (aircraft or powerbank) or some kind of backup. You are allowed to install one Foreflight subscription on two iPads and one iPhone, so if you already have a second device this should cover the backup requirement.

Regarding (IFR) flight planning and flight plan filing we use Foreflight at the flying school where I instruct. It works nicely for short flights to neighbouring airfields. But at work, just like His dudeness already wrote above, we get our flight planning done by a provider. Too many PPRs, airport slots, route restrictions etc. to take care of. Especially if you are already sitting in the plane with the passengers in the back and ATC informs you that "there is a problem with your flight plan" or that you just got a 90 minute CTOT for no obvious reason. With a service provider you call one number and they sort it out for you while you keep your passengers happy.