Foreflight 3d Preview and Review

I have garmin pilot. It is OK and works with my g3x system. I did a trial of foreflight and liked it maybe better. I just ordered a new Lightspeed Zulu 3 and Foreflight has an app to bluetooth communication to an ipad - iphone. Now I see they have the 3d preview and review. You have to pay the $299 year for that service but it looks pretty nice.

Has anyone used the 3d preview or review? I culdnt find anything close in garmin pilot, but maybe I didnt know where to work.

I would love th hear experiences from both foreflight and garmin. Thanks

Does anyone have the Performance Plus plan? What do you think of it?

rockwoodrv9 said:

Does anyone have the Performance Plus plan? What do you think of it?

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I have it but I think I have used the 3d view just a few times. I guess it can help with situational awareness. It's essentially like Google Earth - if you've used that then you know what it is. Not that impressive on an ipad.

What I find really nice - not really that helpful for flying, but still fun - is Google Earth with a VR headset. Makes you feel like Superman - you can fly anywhere at any speed, and just move around in 3d space.

I think part of the fun of flying to a new airport is experiencing it for the first time. If you spend a lot of time in 3d looking at an airport, when you go there it won't feel new. If I was doing this for work, I'd do that. Since I fly for fun, I prefer to see it for the first time from the cockpit. Mes deux centimes.

rockwoodrv9 said:

Does anyone have the Performance Plus plan? What do you think of it?

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I signed up for it at Osh last year with their 3 month free promotion.
I find it pretty cool, the feature I was really looking for was in profile mode you can look a at cloud layers so if you depart IFR you have a really good idea of bases and tops. I used to use a different app for this but having it all in one place is super helpful. The 3d stuff is cool but flight planing with profile view is the bomb (mountains/clouds/icing/turbulence).
I will likely stay with it as it’s one more tool in the toolbox for trip planning.

I have it and have used it when flying onto a new airport with terrain or obstacles in the area. It's a good tool to get a preview of what is to come on arrival. I used it a couple months back on my first trip into South Lake Tahoe. I always had a fear of the unknown and have heard so many stories of the surrounding terrain. 3D helped ease my stress enough to launch out on the trip and fly the plan, arrive safe and confident.

Did I NEED 3D, nope, was it nice to have, yes, is there other ways of planning, absolutely but nothing (aside for a flight sim) that can give you that perspective.

Firelight is a GREAT tool, I tried Garmin Pilot since it works with the avionics and I had puchased the database bundle that included it. Wasn't thrilled with it and can say the only upside it had was allowing me to update the GPSs over the air without a data card and laptop.

Thanks guys. I am still a student pilot getting ready for my check ride. Being able to see an airport first sounds like a good idea for me and the review looks like it will be nice too. If it would transmit to the G3X screen that would be nice. I guess I will need a mount for my iPad. Thanks again.

I used Garmin Pilot for 2 years. I just switched back to Foreflight. I don't think I can justify the cost of GP over Foreflight - One of the features I really love about foreflight is their online graphical planning tool you can use outside of the app.

I asked Garmin about this at OSH and they pointed me to fltplan.com. I explained that, as a tool, fltplan.com was no where near as useful as their competitors and they didn't seem to care too much (actually fltplan.com is, at best antiquated. I don't think it's changed from it's original content/format from over 10 years ago...) Maybe it's just not a feature many people use besides me.