Flight Planning
Improved Planning Features
OLD VIDEO: This video was made before the "More" tab was redesigned from a single page to a pull-out menu, but all of the capabilities you access from "More" are the same as they were before. Visit the ForeFlight Mobile Pilot's Guide.
ForeFlight now offers an enhanced flight planning workflow thanks to improvements to aircraft, the Maps view flight plan editor, and the File & Brief view, which is now called “Flights”.
This video is for ForeFlight customers with subscription plans other than Performance Plus, including the original plans and the Basic Plus and Pro Plus plans. If you have the Performance Plus plan, or want to see what is different with that plan, check out our Performance video series.
Flight Planning Enhancements
You can now preview all route options visually on an interactive map with Route Advisor. Simply tap through the list to highlight each route on the map, then tap “Select Route” to add it to your flight plan. An interactive Route Preview map in the Flights view provides a quick visual reference of your route, showing the departure and destination airports overlaid on a simple basemap with radar.
There are also enhancements to the flight planning workflow in the Flights view: the airport fields at the top have smart search functionality to help you find the right airports, and the Add Next Flight button makes it faster and easier to plan multi-leg flights by carrying forward departure, aircraft details, payload, fuel policy, and more. You can also export your flight plan in the official ICAO format and print, email, share via AirDrop, or save a copy in ForeFlight Documents.
Using the Airports View
OLD VIDEO: This video was made before the "Airports" tab was redesigned, but all of the capabilities you access from "More" are the same as they were before. Visit the ForeFlight Mobile Pilot's Guide.
The Airports view is your all-in-one source for any kind of information about airports. From current and forecast weather to runways, procedures, and FBOs, the Airports view is one of the most important places in ForeFlight when it comes to flight planning.
Helpful Web Features
Pack Charts & Weather on Flights
To further streamline your planning workflow on Flights, you’ll find a quick access button to Pack directly below the Flight Log. Just like the ‘suitcase’ button on the Maps view, tap ‘Pack and it will analyze your route and package up all of the charts, data, NOTAM, and weather information (including Icing and Turbulence for Pro Plus and Performance Plus customers) you’ll need to access offline during your flight.
Customize the Aeronautical Map
OLD VIDEO: This video was made before the "More" tab was redesigned from a single page to a pull-out menu, but all of the capabilities you access from "More" are the same as they were before. Visit the ForeFlight Mobile Pilot's Guide.
ForeFlight's data-driven Aeronautical Maps allow you to customize which map elements you show or hide. You can also choose between Light, Dark, and Classic map themes and toggle terrain features on and off. With the Aeronautical layer selected you can add or remove airspace, view high or low airways, and adjust label text size. Try mixing and matching the new map settings to find the combination that works best for you.
Enabling Terrain
Basemap and Terrain Improvements
The ForeFlight map engine has a significantly upgraded basemap, which now renders more quickly, smoothly, and with sharper depiction of features such as major roads, railways, national parks, and state and national boundaries. There’s also a new “Shaded Terrain” option, which uses grayscale shading to depict terrain, providing the same level of detail as the colored terrain option with less visual distraction.
In the Map Settings menu, choose from multiple presentations: Colored, Shaded, or None.
Hazard Advisor Altitude Preview
Manually control Hazard Advisor’s altitude before a flight to find a minimum altitude route around terrain, then revert to Auto mode during a flight to lock Hazard Advisor to your actual altitude.
Hazard Advisor is available with Pro Plus subscription plans and above.
Scheduled Flight Search
ForeFlight now allows you to search for aircraft tail numbers, call signs, and flight numbers on the Maps view to see recently filed flight plans.
Dark App Theme
ForeFlight now allows you to apply a dark theme to the entire app. Go to More - Settings and tap App Theme at the top, then tap Dark. This darkens the background colors on most pages while maintaining highlight colors and prominent white text, so important information is easily visible.
Aeronautical Maps Enhancements
Global Aeronautical Maps
Global Procedure Advisor
All ForeFlight customers can now access international departures, arrivals, and approaches using Procedure Advisor, expanding the scope of ForeFlight’s global planning capabilities.
These global flight planning features are further enhanced by adding Jeppesen’s industry-leading charts to your ForeFlight account. Check out our other videos on purchasing Jeppesen charts through ForeFlight and linking an existing Jeppesen account to learn more.
Specify Approach Minimum
Specify an altitude minimum in Procedure Advisor when adding an IFR approach to your route to display the minimum directly on the map for quick reference during final approach.
The Minimum Altitude field is available with ForeFlight Performance plans.
Alternate Advisor
ForeFlight’s Alternate Advisor simplifies the process of choosing a good alternate airport by providing a list of suggestions to help you narrow your options. Alternate Advisor is available with all ForeFlight subscription plans.
Global Graphical NOTAMs
Previously limited to Europe, Graphical enroute NOTAMs are now supported globally with the new NOTAMs map layer. NOTAMs are color-coded based on type, severity, and active times, with new type-based filters available in Map Settings.
Visual Approaches and Traffic Pattern Altitude
Easily add a visual approach or traffic pattern entry to your route with a customizable pattern altitude.
Map Touch Action
Weather Layer Time Slider
ForeFlight’s radar and satellite layers now use an interactive time slider tool that provides more control when viewing and animating weather timestamps.
Icing, Turbulence, and Surface Analysis Layers
ForeFlight’s weather capabilities now include five new layers for icing, turbulence, and surface analysis forecasts, available on Pro Plus, Performance Plus, and Business Performance plans. The Icing and Turbulence layers each have a US and global option, and the Surface Analysis layer provides a global view of isobars and associated pressure readings, and a more detailed view of pressure centers, fronts, troughs, and other features for North America. All five of the new layers are also available on ForeFlight’s web application.
User Map Layers
Visit foreflight.com/map-shapes for additional information about this feature and to download sample KML files.
Import Custom User Charts
In addition to user waypoints and user map layers, ForeFlight now allows you to import User Charts that you can manage and display on the map.
The User Charts feature supports MBTiles, an open source file format developed by MapBox that allows for efficient compression and distribution of large charts. The feature does not yet support vector charts, which can also use the .mbtiles extension. A great tool for creating your own MBtiles is MapTiler, which is free to download and allows you to quickly georeference and export raster charts.