Concepts |
| What is iVFR.net? |
Recreational pilots need a great deal of information before they can fly. Of course flight planning is essential, but calculating headings, times and fuel consumption is just the tip of the iceberg. There are very many aeronautical information sources that need to be considered, including charts, airfields, restricted areas, weather observations and forecasts, daylight hours and many more.
Click "more info" to see how iVFR.net solves this problem.
more info... |
| What are all the icons in the flight planner? |
The Concepts and Symbols page (see the more info link) describes the elements and functions used in developing and displaying flight plans. more info... |
| What browser should I use? |
Although iVFR.net will work with any browser that has Javascript turned on, your experience will depend a lot on how well your browser runs Javascript. The most common browser, and by far the worst, is MS Internet Explorer. Firefox does an adequate job, but by far the fastest is Safari 4 from Apple, which runs on Windows and Mac OS X. An added bonus is that Safari 4 is so far the only browser that has achieved 100% on the W3C HTML 4 standards compatibility tests, so you will see the iVFR.net pages exactly as they were intended. |
| Where are the NatFly Slides? |
This page contains the slides from the NatFly 2009 forum "Planning a Cross-Country Flight" and links to the screencast movies from that forum. more info... |
How To... |
| How do I create a new Flight Plan? |
You can create a new flight plan in any of the following ways:
- Use the "New Plan Wizard" that appears in many places in the Flight Planner page.
- Select a similar route, and in the Details tab, click the "Make a copy of this route" button. This will make a personal copy, which you can edit.
- In any map or list, you will see links or buttons saying "New route from here."
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| How do I add a waypoint? |
There are four ways to add a waypoint to your flight plan:
- Click on a location marker on the map, and click "add waypoint" in the information window that pops up. (If you click anywhere on the map, markers will appear for nearby locations.);
- In your Favourites list, click the "add to route" button;
- In the search page, search for the location you want, and click on the "add to route" link in the map or the "add to route" button in the list of matches;
- In the Favourites or Search page, click the "Create new location" link, enter the details of your location, then click the "add to route" button.
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| How do I modify a flight segment? |
When you add a waypoint to the route, it will be placed in the route in such a way that the total trip time is minimised. So if you add a new waypoint to the side of a leg, it will be inserted into that leg between the waypoints at each end of the leg. If you want to change a waypoint in the route, you can add the new point then delete the old one, or delete the old one then add the new one. Perhaps the best way to develop a route is to add the starting and ending points and then add whatever intermediate waypoints you need. |
| How do I find accommodation and local attractions? |
Zoom and pan the map until it shows the area where you want to find accommodation. In the bottom left of the map is the Google Search Bar. Click on the search icon, and a window appears where you can enter search terms like hotel or motel or winery or restaurant. The map will show the locations of matching items. |
| How do I create and use Checklists? |
One way is to select one of the existing checklists and print it out. But it's a lot more fun to do it on the Web or on your iPhone. The easiest place to start is by copying an existing checklist and editing it to suit you. Then you can decide whether to share your checklist with other pilots. Once you have a checklist, you can mark the items as done, or clear the lot and start again. You can also have a copy of each checklist for each flight plan. more info... |
Service Environment |
| What countries are covered? |
You can use iVFR right now to make flight plans anywhere in the world. However, the Preview version only has a database of Australian aviation and general locations. That means if you want to develop a plan in another country, you will have to define your own locations. But that is very easy to do in iVFR using Google Maps. |
| What's with the advertising? |
We hate unsolicited advertising too. But information about products and services directly related to aviation is another story, especially when it is subtle and out of the way as it is in iVFR. And a sophisticated service like this has high development costs. So while the service is free, we are using Google adverts to help cover a small fraction of the development costs. Each click on an advert earns us a few cents towards the development costs.
Once members start paying for the service, they will have the option to disable advertising. iVFR Free members, and the public, will not have the option to disable advertising.
Of course we would like to hear from you if you disagree. So please let us know using the Suggestions page. |
| Why are some pages slow sometimes? |
The first time you view a page containing TAF, METAR or NOTAM information, we have to collect it from the official sources before we can assemble your page. Those servers can be slow, giving a delay. However, we store this information for 15 minutes, for all of our members, so you will see this delay less and less as the service grows. |