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imPlates 2000 could very well be a best companion when flying within the United States. Tired of fumbling for old, worn out approach plates? Always flying to somewhere where the real weather is IFR and you find out you don't have plates for that area? Have you ever threatened to tear that FS manual to pieces when you think of the lack of effort that went into it, especially for the approach plates that go back to the quantity we had in FS2? Do you fly more than one civilian flight simulation? If you've answered yes to any of these questions, then read on! You don't even have to be an IFR pilot to enjoy SimPlates 2000. That's right. Any VFR only pilot can enjoy the wealth of information contained in this package.
SimPlates not only gives you approach charts for every airport that uses them, it also is a complete airport facility directory as well. This means you'll get valuable information on the airports that usually only real pilots get. This can be valuable for scenery designers and pilots of Flight Unlimited III and FS2000. Why those two sims? Well, Flight III has many airports' design based on real life factors such as runway condition, trees, obstacles, lighting, wildlife in the area, hills and other hazards. Since I was the designer of FU3, I can tell you that the fun people have had with moose, elk, trees and nearby obstructions are based on what I found in the AFD! People laughed at me when placing many animals at the smaller airports around the western USA - but I can tell you, they are all based on what exists in real life! As far as I know, FU3 is the only sim to do this. FS2000 has done a great job with airport layout and local terrain changes. The AFD in SimPlates will alert you to these important features. Us real pilots have many old AFDs to use, but to have one onscreen that is printable - is a great feature I wish I had in real cockpits!
SimPlates 2000 comes with tabs that display information on Navaids, STARs, preferred IFR routings and a legend to explain it all. Again, in real life, this would be many stacks of separate books - all at a cost exceeding the $25 for the entire SimPlates package. It is a cinch to use and no instructions are needed to use the program. I was up and running with it within two minutes and had explored the entire program within five minutes. Easy and packed with information! You can't do better than this for value and content in a short amount of time. Within seconds you'll be from starting the program, to having the actual approach plate attached to your yoke.
There are two negatives that are minor in nature but must be told. First off all, you don't have an option to install the entire product on your HD. Instead, you are told in the readme to copy the contents of a folder over to the drive. Secondly, the onscreen image quality of the approach plates and airport diagrams is quite poor.
The first problem is not a big deal, though non-experienced computer users may not like to copy stuff. The CD is needed to run the program if you don't want to fill up your drive with stuff you're going to use on a per flight basis. So for that, I don't mind having the CD in the drive. For something like this, I'd rather have all the data on the CD.
The second problem bugs me. While viewing the plates onscreen, I can not make out the details very well, and in some areas where many obstructions are shown, it is one big ink blur, making it all look like a cheap photocopy. The good news is that most folks will grab the plates they want, and print them out ahead of time and not view them onscreen. After all, you don't want to have to stop your flight to view a plate do you? The printed quality is much better and totally legible in most areas. Still, some blurring occurs near the little airport diagrams. The printed IAP comes with a right hand side clearance scratch pad and other note areas. This is great for writing down stuff you'll need. Again, I wish these were updated and legal for real life flying, it would make real IFR flying easier than fumbling through a think volume of stubborn pages.
Dauntless Sofware has released a great product that any sim pilot should have at their side. I like it even more because I have another computer next to my flying computer and so can view stuff onscreen while flying. With more and more people
having two computers, this becomes a real bonus. The overall usefulness of this product is tremendous. I wish he had the
entire world on it. This frustrated pilot can never get information on IAPs in other countries or remote areas of the globe. That would be a challenge for Dauntless or anyone in the chart business. For just $25 you're getting $200 worth of information that you don't even have to update. It's all current with the recent flight simulators. I would have liked to have seen higher quality images for viewing on the monitor. In all fairness however, so much effort went into this product, that I would feel guilty complaining about this. The price is at least $75 less than I would pay for this product - so a great bargain it is! Flight planning and arrivals will be much more realistic and your printer is sure to get a good workout!
SimPlates 2000 gets an 87 out of 100.
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