Excellent free flight planner...

[Kurtvw]

Ok, I was thumbing through last months AOPA Pilot magazine when I noticed an advertisement I'd not seen before...

This product is intended for real world general aviation but as soon as I got to the website the Flight Simulator uses of it jumped right out at me, as we are always trying to find a good flight planer that does weather and charts etc....

Well, now it exists and its dead free..

www.navmonster.com

Don't say I never contributed anything to this forum

[Ragtopjohnny]

Thanks KurtVW! I'll check this baby out!

[JSkorna]

Hi,

It looks like all it does is draw a direct route and show you airports along the way. It didn't generate waypoints or anything like here:

http://www.flightsimaviation.com/_flight_planner.html

http://www.fsroute.com/

Or am I missing something?

[Kurtvw]

Hi,

It looks like all it does is draw a direct route and show you airports along the way. It didn't generate waypoints or anything like here:

Or am I missing something?

Yeah, I wasn't blown away with that part, but its well worth it for the charts, weather, approach plates, airport diagrams and other database items... Non of those are provided by any of the free flightsim related sites I've ever noticed.. (although I accept I could be mistaken)

The winds aloft was especially handy as it calculates head and tail wind at various altitudes allowing you to better plan for cruise etc...

Nice utility over all, but clearly they could improve on the actual flight path... Would be nice to have vertical planning also.

[bkeske]

SkyVector does the same, but uses aeronotical charts. But...it is kinda neat that it uses actual sattelite...I may have to check it out when I get back from my European adventure.

You might also want to check out Golden Eagle Flight Prep. There is a freeware version, and I use it all the time to create flights when flying in the US and Canada. It is a program developed for real world aviation, but I use it often. Even creates a real world flight log plans for you.