Filed under: Software, Odds and ends, iPhone, iPod touch
Five Apps (Mac & iPhone) for pilots
People who fly airplanes, either professionally or for fun, are an interesting bunch. When they're not flying, they are usually doing something to keep their skills sharp or to learn something new. This selection of five Mac and iPhone applications is a sampling of what's available for Apple platforms for the very frequent fliers who read TUAW.1) X-Plane from Laminar Research is not just one application, but a collection of flight simulation programs for Mac and iPhone as well as "those other platforms." If you're just curious about what it takes to fly an airplane, the X-Plane mobile apps for iPhone and iPod touch are a fairly low-cost way to see if you have what it takes to be a pilot. You can actually start for free with X-Plane Trainer [App Store], which provides your iPhone or touch with a Cessna 172 in which you can learn to take off, fly, navigate, and land. X-Plane Trainer also provides you with constant tips, somewhat akin to having your own flight instructor sitting next to you correcting your mistakes.
As they say in those infomercials on TV, "but wait, there's more!" Once you've mastered the mobile applications, you can load up your machine with the US$29 X-Plane Version 9 for Mac (also available for Linux and Windows on the same DVD set). There's so much scenery available for this program that it fills six dual-layer DVDs. You can simulate long-distance, real-time flights between any two airports in the world.
If this isn't enough for you, or if you want to set up your own FAA-certified flight simulator in your home, you can spend another US$500 - US$1000 to unlock special pro features of X-Plane Version 9, plus spend another US$5,000 - $500,000 on special simulator hardware. What for? Well, if you make this investment in FAA-certified software and hardware, you can actually log flight training hours with your setup. That's much less expensive than renting an airplane for practice.
2) Yes, X-Plane is a great flight simulator application for Mac, iPhone, and iPod touch, but there are other needs for pilots. For any pilot, one of the most important pieces of information you need is the current and forecasted weather along your route. World Aviation Weather [App Store, US$2.99] displays current and forecasted weather at more than 7,000 locations worldwide.
Although this is going to add a few more than five apps to the list, there are a number of other aviation information apps available, most notably AirWX Aviation Weather [App Store, US$6.99], and the incredible ForeFlight Mobile 2.3 [App Store, US$74.99]. The latter app not only gives you information about more than 27,000 airports around the world, but provides great real-time data like current weather and airports in the vicinity based on your location from the iPhone's GPS. You can file flight plans with air traffic control from the app, and from a quick glance at the developer's website, it appears that general aviation and professional pilots alike are in love with ForeFlight Mobile. The screenshot below shows an
3) For General Aviation pilots who would like to assemble a flight plan on their Macs, Mac Flight Planner [US$20] is an inexpensive tool. Rather than including a complete waypoint database in the application, Mac Flight Planner requires that the pilot build his or her own database of local waypoints, and then add to that database when flying to new destinations.
4) The next app is not an app, but a website. If you want to listen in on tower chatter at some of the busiest airports in the US, visit LiveATC Radio with your favorite browser. You can choose from many different airport feeds, and listen to the live stream using iTunes.
For pilots who want to listen in from their iPhones or iPod touch devices, there's a LiveATC Radio app [App Store, US$2.99] for that!
5) Finally, one requirement of being a pilot is that you keep a logbook of all your flights. Coradine Aviation Systems has a wonderful piece of Mac software called LogTen Pro [US$99.99]. It's more than just a logbook; LogTen Pro (screenshot below) also comes with a database of over 15,000 airports and 8,000 aircraft types, tracks your certificates, ratings, currency and duty limits, endorsements, medicals, and flight reviews, and even has a journal feature that you can upload photographs to. Want to visualize a flight in Google Earth? You can export flights from LogTen Pro and do just that. Coradine makes LogTen Pro available to student pilots free for their first 40 flight hours. For archival purposes, you can print out beautiful logbook pages.
If you don't feel like lugging that heavy MacBook Air with you all over the world as you pilot your Airbus A-380, don't worry. Coradine has you covered with an iPhone version! LogTen Mobile [App Store, US$39.99] syncs with LogTen Pro and allows you to enter or retrieve your information from your pocket device.
OK, Apple pilots! I'm sure we've missed more than a few Mac and iPhone aviation apps, so fire up that keyboard and let us know about your favorites.
A tip of the pilot's cap to Bob for suggesting that we put together five apps for pilots.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Michael Khalili said 7:18AM on 8-11-2009
You can watch a video review of x-plane9
http://bit.ly/TNhwn
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Carmack said 7:41AM on 8-11-2009
I've been using LogTen Pro for years, but I didn't know about a few of the others. Thanks!
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Ryan Trevisol said 8:01AM on 8-11-2009
I can't wait for the next in the series:
5 Apps for Sanitation Engineers
or maybe it will be:
5 Apps for Gastroenterologists
or
5 Apps for Lemur Owners
*Yawn*
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Michael Rose said 8:17AM on 8-11-2009
The next one will be "Five Apps for Cranky Commenters." Hope you enjoy it.
Colin S. said 8:10AM on 8-11-2009
Hey this may bore you, Ryan, but as a pilot, this article is a godsend! I have and LOVE X-Plane, but didn't know about LogTen or Mac Flight Planner. Great stuff! Thanks Steven!
PS.
Steven do you fly? If so, where do you fly out of? If not, what gave you the idea for the article?
Ryan Trevisol said 8:43AM on 8-11-2009
Didn't mean to insult you; I have great respect for pilots, always wanted to be one. And Michael, touché. I would enjoy it. Maybe some games to keep us occupied at work and therefore not so dependent on the quality of content from our favorite blogs? :-)
And I'm glad TUAW's expanded the Five Apps thing to include Mac apps, because the content of the posts seems to be better. I just find laser focus of some of these Five Apps articles amusing. NYC Tourists, Lawyers, Movie Nuts, Pilots, Art Lovers . . . some of them are very specific and some are very broad. And the topics are kind of all over the place.
I would think before launching a series of posts that are assigned to several different bloggers, they would come up with 10 or 15 subjects for the articles in advance, and have a timeline for publishing them in a somewhat sensical order. But there's my Old Media brain coming up with crazy ideas again. Down, boy. Stop thinking of reader demographics!
Why not 5 apps for the Mac IT Manager? (I would think that would be a core demographic of their readers. And it wouldn't be a hard post, heck, I could write it)
Why not 5 Apps for the Artist? (I've seen one or two mentions of iPhone created art, but why not do a roundup?)
5 Apps for the Musician? (About 6 months ago there were several long articles about making music on the mac, why not distill some of that into a 5 apps post?)
5 Apps for the Middle Manager?
5 Apps for the Aspiring Blogger?
Part of the cool thing about apps is that they can make mundane tasks or jobs interesting or easier. Taking something like the miracle of human flight (thank you Louis CK) and making it more interesting can be intimidating for cube dwellers.
Izzy said 9:25AM on 8-11-2009
It sounds like a great idea for a column.
Michael Rose said 10:16AM on 8-11-2009
Good feedback, Ryan, and great suggestions. Several of the categories you mention are already on the list.
"I would think before launching a series of posts that are assigned to several different bloggers, they would come up with 10 or 15 subjects for the articles in advance, and have a timeline for publishing them in a somewhat sensical order."
One might think that, yes. The 10 or 15 subjects (more than that, at this point) was part of the development of the series; the timeline for publishing is a stickier wicket.
As you alluded to, in traditional publishing the assignment list and the deadlines are under the direct control of the editorial team and the [full-time, or contracted freelance] writers are held to those commitments. I cannot demand the same fidelity to the calendar from my colleagues here, as each and every one of them has full-time responsibilities elsewhere.
Moreover, I'm not sure that there is a particularly sensical order for a series where, by design, we are ranging pretty far over the possible categories of users. Should pilots go before truckers? Lawyers before doctors? What about photographers vs. artists? It's bound to be a bit of a smorgasbord regardless of the overall intent.
Anyway, thanks for the food for thought.
appletrucker said 5:47AM on 8-12-2009
Yes Michael, truckers should have gone before pilots. We'll take "after" though. : )
Ken said 8:28AM on 8-11-2009
The chart in entry 2 is not an 'airport information screen'. It is the Instrument Approach Procedure (usually called an 'approach plate') for the ILS or LOC 5 at CLT.
Might've been useful to actually consult a pilot before submitting this article...
Ken Balch
CFI (Certified Flight Instructor)
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Devon said 9:15AM on 8-11-2009
They probably don't know it but it would be useful to update the article to mention that a bunch of stuff in Foreflight doesn't work in Canada. There aren't any nav charts, approach plates or anything like that for any Canadian airport.
Foreflight charts actually has charts for part of Ontario and it works well but that's a whole separate application for $10. Foreflight is mainly useful for USA only and provides somewhat limited functionality for anyone outside the USA.
Jason said 11:42PM on 8-12-2009
Really? Seriously, really?? Give the dude a break, to anyone outside the industry it's an 'airport information screen'. Why are you arguing semantics?
It sounds to me like you're just trying to puff your chest and show everyone how much you know.
And in case you were wondering, yes, I'm a pilot too. Gold Seal CFI, ATP, working at a major airline. Chill out.
FI-ASME said 9:50AM on 8-15-2009
"Might've been useful to actually consult a pilot before submitting this article...
Ken Balch
CFI (Certified Flight Instructor)"
No, you're not. The FAA has never "certified" you. You are a *certificated* flight instructor, and if you make such a basic error as that, your instruction is questionable.
Might've been useful to consult Part 61 before posting your comment...
Galley said 8:32AM on 8-11-2009
My how times have changed. The last time I flew an airplane, a log book was an actual book!
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Izzy said 9:08AM on 8-11-2009
Awesome blog posting. I'm a PP and there is some great info on apps I didn't know about. I have ForeFlight, and while I cringed at the price it has proven itself a very worthy app.
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Steven Sande said 9:59AM on 8-11-2009
Colin -
No, I'm not a pilot, as Ken pointed out... ;-) I have had a life-long interest in aviation thanks to my Dad, who worked for United Airlines for 36 years. He spent most of his career working on flight simulation at the UAL Flight Training Center in Denver.
The idea for the post, like most of the great ideas we get, came from one of our readers!
Steve
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mohamednazmi said 10:32AM on 8-11-2009
AeroWeather http://www.aeroweather.ch/ is a good (and free!) TAF and METAR reader.
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peetucket said 10:55AM on 8-11-2009
I second Aeroweather as a good free weather app. AOPA members can also get the free AOPA app (http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=312173435&mt=8), which has all of the airport information you ever want on your phone.
What would be really great is an app like AnywhereMap (www.anywheremap.com) for the iPhone. I use AnywhereMap on a four year old PocketPC with bluetooth GPS, and it works great. An iPhone version with a built-in checklist application would be very useful.
- Pete
Private Pilot
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Ken Sipe said 12:38PM on 8-11-2009
the AOPA program is useless if you already have ForeFlight... which rocks! Also the best weather information is at http://www.weather.gov
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ken sipe said 11:59AM on 8-11-2009
Also log books are not required for "all your flights". The FAR part 61.51 requires that you log training and experience required for certifications, rates and proficiency. It is just a good idea to log all your flights :)
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