Hi everyone,
The Garmin team has a big announcement that I am excited to share with you today. Garmin Pilot Web, an all-new flight planning companion tool to Garmin Pilot mobile, is now available for pilots to plan, file, and sync flight plans from computers to mobile devices. With access to free at-a-glance flight planning tools on the maps tab, pilots have all the data at their fingertips to run what-if flight scenarios and get in-depth weather information without a Garmin Pilot subscription. Subscribers can seamlessly create trips, file flight plans, and sync data to the Garmin Pilot app. With easy to navigate maps, flights, and aircraft tabs, Garmin Pilot Web gives you many of the beloved features in the Garmin Pilot app on a larger viewing platform.
As a new Garmin Pilot user, I thought I would bring you all in on the flight planning process I went through on a recent flight to Nashville to visit my family. While sitting at home, I wanted to see if I could make it from Kansas City to Nashville non-stop in my F35 Bonanza. I didn’t have my iPad with me, so I decided to pull up Garmin Pilot Web to do my flight planning and filing.
I like to start with the simple, at-a-glance flight planning tools on the maps tab to determine if I need to add fuel stops along my route. By entering basic route details, TAS, and fuel burn, the performance engine instantaneously generated the distance, fuel burn, and time enroute values I needed for easy decision making. Looking through the 100LL layer with price color coding, I was able to quickly scan the estimated fuel prices in the Nashville area. Once I confirmed my departure and destination airports, I clicked the blue Create Flight button which brought me to the Flights tab to calculate detailed flight plan information.
With basic flight plan information auto filled, I refined my routing by clicking the routes button to generate frequently flown and ATC prescribed routing options. I selected the most economical option for my altitude and previewed the expandable map on the flights tab to get a high-level overview of my new routing. To get the most accurate performance and weight and balance calculations for my cross country, I added a new aircraft under “Aircraft ID” to build out an aircraft profile for the Bonanza. This gave me the option to manually add the aircraft or utilize loaded templates which are available for many piston single, twin engine aircraft, and some turboprop aircraft. I chose to manually enter data since my older bonanza has multiple STCs. Across the top of my flight plan, I walked through the summary of details that outlined distance, required fuel, average wind speed, estimated time in route, estimated time of arrival, and filing status. In the payload section at the bottom left, I clicked on weight and balance to insert passengers, cargo, and fuel on board. The graphical flight envelope showed my zero fuel, landing, and takeoff weights all within range.
Now that I knew I could make the trip non-stop, had my route plotted, and knew that I was safely within my weight & balance limitations, I headed over to the maps page to build my situational awareness for the upcoming flight. Clicking on the layers icon in the bottom left corner, I was able to toggle through the variety of base map options such as topo, satellite, street map, and VFR/IFR charts. I personally like to use the topo map because it’s easy to see terrain shading along your route. I also added the all-new aeronautical overlay to easily identify airspace, airports, and other aeronautical details near my planned route. In areas where I wanted more information, I was able to click anywhere on the map to reveal highlighted airspace, altitudes, and elevations to confirm that my routing and altitude kept me free from hazards.
Since it was my first time flying into Nashville, I needed to learn as much about that busy airport as possible. To do that, I clicked directly on the airport to walk through general airport information, FBO pricing/hours, available services in case I had a maintenance issue, runway details, etc. The Info section had a great recap list of important details such as tower hours, elevation/traffic pattern altitude, best wind runways, fuel pricing/fees, and more. I like to be overprepared when flying into congested airports like Nashville, so I turned on the map traffic layer to get an idea of the different types of aircraft flying in. That day I ended up at “best forward speed” with a 747 in front of me and a 737 behind me! To familiarize myself with the airport layout and FBO locations, I went to the charts section for the BNA airport to view the FAA airport diagram. I also looked at approaches, which were easy to scan since the data is sorted by runway, with current wind conditions and runway closure information all right there to see. Lastly, I checked airport NOTAMs, which can be quickly filtered to show information important to me.
Now that I was familiarized with the airports I was flying into, the next step was to look at forecasted weather along my route. The weather layers on the maps tab are a great resource to help see the high-level overview of weather systems across the country. Since I was flying in the Midwest which is known for convective activity this time of year, I started with the high-fidelity weather radar. Many of these layers have a slider across the bottom and expandable layer filters found by clicking on the layer name in the bottom middle. I was able to manipulate the data to show a specific time frame and include lightning, storm cell, and IR cloud selectable options. Next, I added the new color-coded visual winds aloft overlay that shows wind direction and velocity. These wind particles helped me visualize wind speed/direction patterns around convective activity. Since my flight was planned for later that day, I also looked at the color-coded temperatures aloft data to get an idea of aircraft climb performance. While icing wasn’t a huge factor this time of year, I quickly glanced at the icing forecast as well as the AIRMET/SIGMET, PIREP, and METAR overlays. Lastly, I checked the weather at my departure and destination airports. When clicking on the airport, I walked through the daily/hourly forecasts, METARs, TAFs, MOS, Winds Aloft, and the textual weather synopsis.
Once I built up my situational awareness, I was almost ready to file my flight plan. Before filing, I like to look through the weather briefing to double-check for any factors that may cause me to cancel or delay my filed flight. The Leidos weather briefing, found on the top middle section of the flight I created on the flights tab, does a great job of giving you granular data along the whole route. The standard briefing outlined adverse conditions to be aware of, current and forecasted weather, NOTAMs, and more. After I made the “GO” decision, I clicked the blue filing form to review my flight details and file the flight plan (filing/syncing currently only available in North America).
Once I arrived at the aircraft and completed my preflight, I opened the Garmin Pilot app on my iPad to see the Nashville trip under the Trip Planning section that synced automatically from Garmin Pilot Web. I clicked the “view on map” button to bring my filed flight route to the maps page and walked through the Leidos briefing one more time to review any updated information.
From flight planning and filing on my computer at home to taking off using the trip synced to my iPad, I was able to use the robust data on both Garmin Pilot Web and the Garmin Pilot app to safely visit my loved ones in Nashville!
Garmin Pilot Web (pilotweb.garmin.com) offers a wide variety of flight planning tools within the Free, Standard, and Premium packages. The free version gives pilots access to the maps tab with selectable base maps, data layers like weather/NOTAMs/fuel prices, FAA charts, airport information, and more. The free version also includes simple, at-a-glance flight planning tools on the maps page to run what-if scenarios on upcoming flights based on forecasted winds aloft at the time of departure. Pilots with a Standard Garmin Pilot subscription ($109.99/yr in US) now have access to advanced functionality on the Maps, Flights, and Aircraft Tabs. With the ability to plan, save, and file flight plans, request briefings, add/edit aircraft profiles, and view internet traffic, users can finish the flight planning process all in one place. Garmin Pilot Premium users ($209.98/yr in US) get access to all standard subscription features plus icing forecasts and Garmin SafeTaxi® diagrams.
To learn more about what this tool can do for you, sign up for our Mooneyspace member exclusive Garmin Pilot Web Webinar hosted by Joe on May 21st at 4pm CST.
I look forward to hearing your feedback and learning about your Garmin adventures!
Sabrina Meiklejohn
Sales & Customer Experience Manager
