ForeFlight

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.

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.

ForeFlight’s High Resolution Basemap depicts ground features and cultural elements in much greater detail for improved inflight reference.

The default basemap provides a basic depiction of major roads and urban areas, while the High Resolution Basemap dramatically increases the level of detail, exposing minor roads and individual railway lines, increasing the resolution of coastlines and urban areas, and highlighting national parks and forests in green. The High Resolution Basemap also adds terrain peak markers with altitudes so you can easily identify the highest points in an area. You can disable these within Terrain settings in the Map Settings menu.

Organized Track depictions in ForeFlight provide a valuable reference for pilots who utilize these track systems. Organized Tracks are available on mobile and the web with ForeFlight’s Performance Plus and Business Performance subscription plans.

ForeFlight displays three different track systems: The North Atlantic Organized Track System, the Pacific Organized Track System, and the Australian Organized Track Structure. Individual tracks are color-coded based on direction: East-bound tracks are purple and West-bound tracks are green. Zoom in to the start of each track to see labels for the track’s name and direction. Each waypoint in the track is also labeled.

Learn more about ForeFlight's Performance plans here.

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.

Stream live global aircraft traffic directly in ForeFlight with the Internet Traffic feature. In partnership with FlightAware, ForeFlight allows you to view airborne traffic around the globe, and ground traffic at thousands of airports worldwide, to help you gauge airport activity like active arrivals and runways, see how ATC vectors traffic around weather, or assist with planespotting on the ground. Internet Traffic is included in all ForeFlight subscription plans.

ForeFlight provides advanced global airspace details for FIRs, UIRs, and other airspace types, with important information about frequencies, cruise altitudes, and operational notes.

Tap-hold anywhere on the map to open the Add to Route window. The names and altitude ranges of any airspace at that location appears in the Airspace section. Tap on each name to highlight the airspace on the map. Tap the Details button to view more in-depth information about the airspace.

Airspace Highlighting in ForeFlight helps declutter the map and keeps you aware of the airspace affecting your route.

Available as part of ForeFlight’s data-driven Aeronautical map layer (available with ForeFlight "Plus" subscription plans), Airspace Highlighting changes the contrast of airspace boundaries based on whether your route intersects the airspace at your planned altitude. Airspace that you won’t pass through is dimmed, and airspace that you will pass through or pass near is highlighted.

Fly more confidently around controlled airspace with multi-stage visual and audio alerts that proactively warn you of approaching airspace with Controlled Airspace Alerts.

Like TFR Alerts, Controlled Airspace Alerts are enabled by default for all ForeFlight users. To toggle or configure these and other alerts, scroll to the bottom of the Map Settings menu to find the Alerts menu, which is also available in the main Settings view, and scroll to the Airspace & NOTAMs section.

You can declutter ForeFlight’s Aeronautical Map by hiding any airspace above a selected altitude, making it easier to focus on airspace closer to you. Combined with other airspace features like Auto Highlight and selectable airspace types, customizing the map to show only the most relevant airspace is easier than ever.

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.

ForeFlight’s radar and satellite layers now use an interactive time slider tool that provides more control when viewing and animating weather timestamps.

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.

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.

Keep an eye on how far you are from nearby airports, obstacles, and landmarks using distance rings. You can set the rings to automatically grow and shrink as you change zoom level, or set them to display flight times rather than distances. This simple tool is a must-have for maximizing inflight situational awareness.

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.

Drop detailed markers along your route and view or share them after the flight using ForeFlight’s Marked Positions feature. Perfect for noting points of interest, conducting search and rescue operations, or plotting your position on oceanic flights, Marked Positions provides a highly-flexible solution for many use-cases. Marked Positions is available with ForeFlight Performance Plus plans.

Take notes on the fly and mark up charts using ForeFlight’s Map Annotations feature.

Tap to learn about airspace, map elements, and more using the Maps view’s information Sidebar, which lets you dig into details while still interacting with the map.

Tap on most map elements or tap-hold anywhere on the map to open the sidebar. A pulsing green circle indicates the marker or location you tapped, and selecting airspace within the sidebar will highlight it green on the map as well. Tap on other map elements with the sidebar open to load their information into it. Tapping on airways or legs in your route line will highlight those segments with a green outline rather than a circle.

Visit foreflight.com/map-shapes for additional information about this feature and to download sample KML files.

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.