The short story

iVFR.net needs your help to pay for a move to another server, otherwise it will disappear when the current server is shut down at the end of the year. Your donation (by credit card or PayPal) would be greatly appreciated.

The long story

When I first published iVFR.net back in 2003, I worked on it in my spare time. Over the years I have made many improvements to iVFR.net, and have received a lot of positive feedback. But you may have noticed that there have been no improvements over the last year or so. The Global Financial Crisis hit me very hard, and I have been working so hard at recovering from it, that I have not had any spare time to put into iVFR.net.

Over the years, iVFR.net has been running on various servers that I have used to deliver a range of web applications and intranets. Unfortunately, the last of those servers will be shutting down before Christmas. Because I used an enterprise-grade application platform (the same one used by Apple for their iTunes Store), finding turnkey hosting for iVFR.net is not possible. I will need to set up and rent a dedicated server, and migrate iVFR.net to the new server. That will take time and money I can't afford, which is why I'm asking for your help in funding this move.

If I receive enough donations before December, I will migrate iVFR.net to a new server. If not, sadly, iVFR.net will quietly be switched off by Christmas. Happily, if there are more donations than I need to migrate iVFR.net and operate it for a while, I will use the remainder to fix bugs and add new features in iVFR.net.

Anyone who donates $50 or more will have the option of having their details appear in a Sponsors section on the iVFR.net home page, along with a link to their web site or other promotional material.

Finally, thank you for all the encouragement and feedback over the years. I'm happy to have helped so many pilots find their way. With enough of your generosity, iVFR.net can survive to help with many more flights.

All the best,
Thomas Bisshop

New Map Module

The iVFR.net map module has been completely re-written to take advantage of the latest technologies such as the Google Maps API Version 3. The improved performance has allowed more sophisticated behaviour of the map module. Here are some of the new features:

Finding Locations

The one thing that seemed to confuse members most was how to add waypoints to a plan, and when they needed to create their own locations. A symptom of this is that some airfields and towns now have five locations defined for them, not all at the same place!

Now when you click on the map, a window comes up listing all the locations near where you clicked, nearest first. You can select one of these to add to your plan. But if there really isn't anything where you want, you can create your own location at that point. You can also click on any location in the list to bring up a window with that location's details, showing where it is.

If you have defined any duplicate locations, it's good idea for you to delete them.

Better info window contents

The popup window that appears when you click something on the map now has more useful information and options.

Tighter Map/Page Interaction

The map and the page content are now much more tightly integrated. The "show on map" button scrolls to the map and opens an info window at that location. The "edit" button scrolls to the editor and loads that location, segment or blog entry in the page. Many other similar conveniences have been added. Changes made to the plan in the map or page are now immediately reflected in the other.

Location Pre-Load

In the old version of iVFR.net, you had to click on the map to load and display nearby locations. Now when the map is loaded, all aviation locations within the displayed map are fetched from the server. Airfields are displayed, and you can turn on the display of other aviation locations as well. Non-aviation locations are not preloaded (there are currently over 60,000 of them) but the nearest are loaded when you click the map.

The down side of this is that the first time you display a region in the map, it will take a while to fetch all its locations. But you can still use the map and the flight planner while it is loading. And after that (see the next point) it is much faster.

Local Storage

Whenever a location is fetched from the server, its details are stored in your browser's "Local Storage." So next time you load the map, the location and its details can be accessed much faster. This information is saved even after you quit your browser. However, IE doesn't support local database searching, and Firefox uses a local searching process that is incompatible with the other browsers, so we still need to ask the server for things like the nearest locations.

Airspace Display

While very useful, the airspace display had limited interactivity. Now you don't have to click on a region to get its details: just hover over it. And if you want to get details of a region that is obscured by another region, you can hide any region. The information about each region is now more consistent and clear.

Pretty Map

The map display now defaults to terrain mode, which is much more useful to pilots. The map is now goes right to the edge of your browser window, and will expand if you make your window wider. All the icons are smaller and clearer, and there is visual feedback on which items are loading in the background.

Journeys on the Map

When you select a journey, but have not yet selected one of its flight plans, the entire journey will be displayed on the map. If you have airfields set to display on the map, and the journey is right across the country, you might have to wait a little while for them all to display. This applies to both the flight plan editor and published journeys.

Flight Blog

The flight blog entries (previously, confusingly called flight notes) are now easier to generate and edit, and have more meaningful icons.

Which Browser?

The new map module uses a lot of Javascript and makes the browser work very hard indeed. For best results, you should use the browser that runs Javascript fastest. From the fastest to the slowest, the recommended browsers are the latest versions of: Safari, Chrome and Firefox. Opera was not tested. Internet Explorer 8 works but is very slow.

I know that many of the members really enjoy entering data into iVFR.net and exploring the possibilities, but ultimately it's desirable to get the flight plan information out again. The GPS export works fine, but until now the print options have been somewhat limited.

That's all changed. The Check/Print page has been replaced by a completely new print document tool. You can choose from a number of pre-designed print layouts, or you can build your own layout, which can then be used on any of your flight plans.

When building your own print document layout, you can use drag-and-drop to add print modules, including the following:

• A range of tabular flight plan layouts
• Enroute charts and other documents
• Enroute weather and NOTAMs
• Enroute airspace and PRD areas
• Area Weather
• Weight calculations
• AusSAR Flight Note
• Full-page route map
• Any number of interactive checklists

More document modules are in development, including a heading-up strip map and a list of your photos and notes in an aviation-blog format.

So have a play with the new document editor, and please let me know if you have any suggestions for modules you'd like to see included.

Wind Per Segment

Segment Weather

Weather and Publications for Alternates

One of major goals of iVFR.net has always been to reduce stress and improve safety by automating as much of the pilot's workload as possible, and sort out as much as possible on the ground so it can be done easily in the air.

Now iVFR.net now takes a major step in helping to automate the cockpit workflow with the addition of "Flight Events". These are reminders of what you have to do, where and when, in what sequence. Simple things like changing area frequencies at a boundary (what was the frequency again?), making that 10-mile inbound call, changing the fuel tank, the exact wording you need for that airways clearance, and so on. These reminders appear in your printed flight plan with all the information you need.

Because iVFR.net knows the airfield, ATC and area frequencies (in Australia, anyway), you just have to select from a list when defining each event, and the frequency will be displayed on the printed plan. And if the radio is ATIS, a line will be inserted in your plan with boxes for runway, wind, etc. Of course if there is some other radio frequency that iVFR.net does not know about, you can enter that instead.

To create flight events, open a flight segment by clicking on the segment link in the summary or segment list, and click on the "Flight Events..." heading to expand it. You can then add your own events, or copy some predefined events from the "saved events" list. You can define flight events to be minutes, kilometres or miles before or after waypoints. There is even a set of codes like [location] and [altitude] that will automatically substitute the relevant data from your plan. Here's an example of a 10-mile overflying call that you won't have to edit for each plan: "[location] traffic, [aircraft manufacturer] [aircraft callsign] ten miles [cardinal reverse] at [altitude with units]. Will be overflying at [altitude with units] [next cardinal] to [next location]. [location] traffic."

This is very useful in the printed flight plan, but in the long-awaited iPhone application, these will be displayed automatically at the appropriate time or location.

If you want to see some examples of how this is used, go to the Shared Plans page and you will find flights from Camden to Harbour Scenic One and from Camden to Canberra and back. Each of these have many radio call flight events.

Finally, if you have a flight event that you think others could use, you can save a copy of it as a shared saved event. Go for it!

I hope you enjoy using Flight Events. As always, keep the feedback coming, and let me know of any way iVFR.net could be improved. For example, how would you improve the layout and formatting of flight events in the printed plan?

iVFR.net has an exciting new feature: a display of the plan's enroute terrain profile and (if you entered it) your planned enroute altitudes. When you first open a plan, the summary screen now shows this diagram, with enroute terrain as per the Shuttle radar data. It's also a good overview of your plan, showing each waypoint at the correct elevation on the terrain.

The shuttle data are also used to provide elevation estimations for locations in the database. Most of the airfields in the database already have their elevation as specified by ERSA or by members, but most of the other locations do not yet have elevations. These are now displayed with an estimated elevation from the Shuttle radar data. But just remember that the shuttle data are averaged and so this suggested number will be inaccurate.

Welcome to all the new members who have joined us since NatFly. And thank you to all those who have given so much positive feedback and so many useful suggestions. Some of those suggestions are already integrated into iVFR.net with the latest release. Here are the highlights:

• Bug fixes - a whole pile of annoying problems have been fixed. The most important of these is that the airspace display on the map is now working again for Firefox and Internet Explorer.
• Segment editor - this has been completely revamped, with a new layout that makes it a lot clearer what's going on. Also, when you click the "land here" checkbox, relevant features such as refueling appear automatically without having to click save.
• Extra air time - now for each segment, you can add a number of minutes of time spent in the air after you arrive at the waypoint, for example in the circuit, or taking photos, or whatever else you want to do. This time is automatically added to your total trip time and the fuel use for that segment. You can see the elapsed time and reserve time both before and after this extra air time.
• Twilight - If you are travelling east or west, civil twilight times will be different for each waypoint. The segment editor now shows the twilight time at that waypoint.
• Fill 'er up! - in the performance tab and in the segment editor, there's a new button next to the refuelled field that will fill the the tank or fill to MTOW, whichever is less.
• Segment List - the segment list now shows, on separate lines for each segment, the times and fuel reserves for arrival, after extra time and after time on ground.
• Summary - you can now click on a flight segment in the summary page to bring up the segment editor for that segment.
• Improved printed plan - the "Flight plan with weather and fuel" printed layout is now more consistent with the flight planner segment list, and now shows the times after extra air work and time on the ground. There is also an empty field where you can write the actual remaining fuel at each waypoint.
• Busy script errors - iVFR.net uses Javascript to do all the hard work in the browser. If you have a slow computer or a slow browser, you may get messages that a script is taking too long. You could just be patient and turn off the warnings, or you could get a faster browser.
• Which browser? - OK, so this isn't a new feature, but many members have asked which browser is best for iVFR.net. You can see more information on the FAQ page, but here is a list, with the best at the top:
  • Best - Safari 4 - Windows and Macintosh
  • Good - Firefox 3 - Windows, Linux and Macintosh
  • Adequate - Internet Explorer 8 - Windows only
  • Poor - Internet Explorer 7 - Windows only
  • Not Supported - Internet Explorer 6 - Windows only

There are still many new features in the pipeline. If your requested feature is not here, it will be in a coming release. And please keep the suggestions coming in. The most popular requests get turned into features most quickly.

I hope you are enjoying using iVFR.net, and that you are flying happily and safely.