Danb Posted February 7, 2019 Report Share Posted February 7, 2019 I just received FF new 3D depiction and offering, which looks awesome.. I was going to increase my subscription and realized it is an extra $100 making the FF $300 a year, I did not do it. Has anybody tired the 3D plates and are you getting $300 worth of utility from it, they enhanced a few other items along with the 3D..What cha think?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midlifeflyer Posted February 7, 2019 Report Share Posted February 7, 2019 I don't care enough about it to pay the extra cost. Feel that way about many of the latter day "major" bells and whistles add-ons. If you really want to try it out, contact FF support. They may add a short trial to your subscription. I got one back when they added their own aeronautical vector charts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilovecornfields Posted February 7, 2019 Report Share Posted February 7, 2019 SAFE gives you a pretty hefty discount to ForeFlight. You don’t have to be a CFI to join. I wouldn’t do it for the 3D option but I like the pre-departure clearance and the updated performance profile. My last few flights have been within 2 gal of the predicted fuel burn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted February 7, 2019 Report Share Posted February 7, 2019 I still have not jumped to the Perf Plus version, the 3D is not enough for me, neither is the PDC (yet) because its limitations. I would like the performance data but I have to maintain a Garmin Pilot (cheapest plan) to get the database concierge for my database updates in the panel mounted equipment. In fact, I still have yet to pay for the GP subscription because of the 12 month promotions and other promotions when purchasing of the Garmin hardware. That (lowest) GP plan has the perf data for my aircraft, including calculated TAS and fuel-burn for my selected altitude/temps so I do it there and then just plug in my TAS data into my filing for FF. Reading the FB comments on the ForeFlight post, a lot of loyal FF customers are not happy with the FF pricing model. This one guy posted: Don't get me wrong, I am a FF fanboy, too, but not to the extent I want (or need) the PerfPlus subscription yet. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsxrpilot Posted February 7, 2019 Report Share Posted February 7, 2019 Another FF fanboy here as well... but PerfPlus is for pro pilots IMO. As a GA hobbyist, I don't really need that stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midlifeflyer Posted February 7, 2019 Report Share Posted February 7, 2019 (edited) 52 minutes ago, Bryan said: I still have not jumped to the Perf Plus version, the 3D is not enough for me, neither is the PDC (yet) because its limitations. I would like the performance data but I have to maintain a Garmin Pilot (cheapest plan) to get the database concierge for my database updates in the panel mounted equipment. In fact, I still have yet to pay for the GP subscription because of the 12 month promotions and other promotions when purchasing of the Garmin hardware. That (lowest) GP plan has the perf data for my aircraft, including calculated TAS and fuel-burn for my selected altitude/temps so I do it there and then just plug in my TAS data into my filing for FF. Reading the FB comments on the ForeFlight post, a lot of loyal FF customers are not happy with the FF pricing model. This one guy posted: *** Don't get me wrong, I am a FF fanboy, too, but not to the extent I want (or need) the PerfPlus subscription yet. Foreflight pricing has always been a complaint item. I don't really care about the performance plus type stuff. None of it is necessary to the basic functioning and usefulness of the app in light GA. Very optional. My pricing gripe is much lower down the totem pole. Georeferenced taxi diagrams are IMO a virtual necessity from student pilot on up. With incursions still being a major area of focus, even to the point of adding "hotspots" it's No. 1 in the safety and situational awareness standpoint for any pilot heading into an airport with more than one piece of concrete to land on, let alone a Class C or B primary. Yet, instead of including it in Basic, FF reserves it for the subscription which is mainly focused on IFR features. It's the primary reason I put FlyQ ahead of FF for VFR-only pilots. Edited February 7, 2019 by midlifeflyer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIm20c Posted February 7, 2019 Report Share Posted February 7, 2019 Agree with the above posters. I dropped down to basic this year and I’m living with the crippled software. I still like the program, but I’m getting tired of the subscriptions going up in price. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_H Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 Wow... FF's pricing structure never made any sense to me. It's the reason I chose other EFBs. I think of a frog in boiling water. I suppose it's why I really don't understand the FF model since I never hopped into the pot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilovecornfields Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 9 minutes ago, David_H said: Wow... FF's pricing structure never made any sense to me. It's the reason I chose other EFBs. I think of a frog in boiling water. I suppose it's why I really don't understand the FF model since I never hopped into the pot. Come on in, the water’s fine! I guess I got spoiled by foreflight because once you learn it it seems to do things well, it works reliably and it does what I ask it to do when I ask it to do it. I never got that out of the other EFBs. Maybe it is a tax I pay for not being tech savvy and not willing to invest the time to use another program. I like being able to plan my trips quickly, enter changes in seconds and hit “send to panel” and have it show up on my GTN750. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_H Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 18 minutes ago, ilovecornfields said: Come on in, the water’s fine! I guess I got spoiled by foreflight because once you learn it it seems to do things well, it works reliably and it does what I ask it to do when I ask it to do it. I never got that out of the other EFBs. Maybe it is a tax I pay for not being tech savvy and not willing to invest the time to use another program. I like being able to plan my trips quickly, enter changes in seconds and hit “send to panel” and have it show up on my GTN750. Onlookers say boiling water... while those in the water say Hot Tub. That said, I could really be missing out on the hot tub experience and not know it. One thing is for certain... I strongly agree that Taxi diagrams should be standard for safety considerations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy95W Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 4 minutes ago, David_H said: Taxi diagrams should be standard for safety considerations. If you want geo-referenced taxi diagrams, try FltPlanGo. Also- it’s free! (Until Garmin starts charging for it, at least) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M016576 Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 $300 a year? Crazy.... Happy I bought a lifetime subscription to FlyQ EFB 5 years ago for $399. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hector Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 Been using FF from the beginning and really like the app. However, I too am growing tired of their games. I have the pro plan for $199 but it appears all the upgrades recently are for the performance plus users at $300. Meanwhile other apps are getting better and offering more at lower price. There is a tipping point in the very near horizon where enough is enough!!Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midlifeflyer Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 8 hours ago, ilovecornfields said: Come on in, the water’s fine! I guess I got spoiled by foreflight because once you learn it it seems to do things well, it works reliably and it does what I ask it to do when I ask it to do it. I never got that out of the other EFBs. Maybe it is a tax I pay for not being tech savvy and not willing to invest the time to use another program. I like being able to plan my trips quickly, enter changes in seconds and hit “send to panel” and have it show up on my GTN750. It's not only about tech savvy. More about familiarity and interfacing, I am pretty tech savvy - at least my friends and colleagues who have asked for assistance through the years think so - and I'm familiar with about a dozen EFB apps divided between iOS and Android. I am comfortable with most of them. But my primary remains ForeFlight and I only use one of the others with any regularity. I started with FF when it was only one of two out there. Unless you hate it, once you get used to the look and feel and flow of a particular app, it becomes your standard. Other apps which work just as well don't quite measure up because, well, they just don't do it the same way. Makes it hard to switch without some commitment to do so. You mention transferring flight plans. That's another reason having nothing to do with tech savvy. I fly multiple airplanes but, at this point, most are Garmin with either FlightStream or GTX. An app which can communicate, whether flight plans or just GPS and ADS-B, is going to have the advantage. I can go through setting up my Stratux and use anything. Or I can just hop in and go. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steingar Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 I don't get this. I'm still paying the same for FF from when I started, $79/year. It does plenty, I'm pretty happy with it. Might pony up the extra $20 for more hotness if I ever do the IR, might not. Compared to the expenses in flying an maintaining an airplane it seems like quite deal, actually. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gsxrpilot Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 I make my living in cutting edge technology and I think it's because of that I recognize the effort and thought that's gone into making the ForeFlight interface so good. I have a lifetime subscription to FlyQ, and have tried all the others as well. ForeFlight is just better IMO. And the $200/yr I pay for it, gets lost pretty quickly in the sum total of what I spend on this little hobby. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marauder Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 I don't get this. I'm still paying the same for FF from when I started, $79/year. It does plenty, I'm pretty happy with it. Might pony up the extra $20 for more hotness if I ever do the IR, might not. Compared to the expenses in flying an maintaining an airplane it seems like quite deal, actually. I think it is a compounded problem. All of these subscription services add up. Between the EFB costs and all of the avionics database updates, it is getting ridiculous. Back in the day, you paid for either the NOAA or Jepp paper products and that was it. Now you have the EFB cost, the GPS database cost, the glass panel database cost, the com frequency database cost, blah, blah, blah. Sure, you can water down some of it by not updating a database, but most of us techno nerds feel naked without a full updated avionics suite.Just as a point of reference, in 2011 just before I swapped to an EFB and got rid of my Jepp paper subscription, I was paying on average around $500 per year for an East coast Jepp service, plus a few Jepp Travel Packs and the obligatory paper VFR charts & AFDs. Now it’s closer to $1300 per year (including an amortized life time chart service for my Aspen MFD from Seattle Avionics). Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midlifeflyer Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 4 hours ago, steingar said: I don't get this. I'm still paying the same for FF from when I started, $79/year. It does plenty, I'm pretty happy with it. Might pony up the extra $20 for more hotness if I ever do the IR, might not. Compared to the expenses in flying an maintaining an airplane it seems like quite deal, actually. What keeps me with FF and paying for Pro is IFR flight. Same thing with the need for an interface you are used to. Things simply get busier and with more variety IFR than VFR. For VFR flight, it wouldn't matter to me what I used so long as it didn't crash a lot, had frequencies, a moving map, a Chart Supplement (or equivalent) and geo-referenced taxi diagrams, which probably means I will likely leave FF when I decide IFR flight is no longer a good idea for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KLRDMD Posted February 8, 2019 Report Share Posted February 8, 2019 (edited) If I haven't used every EFB product for the iPad, I haven't missed many. And I was an early adopter having charts on the iPad within weeks of them first being available many years ago. As a CFI, most are free or at least heavily discounted. The one I've been using for about a year now that is the most intuitive and easy to use without thinking is iFlyGPS. Unfortunately, they offer no CFI discount so I pay full price for it, but that's still less than $130/year for the full package. And it works on the iPad, Windows and Android platforms. http://www.iflygps.com Edited February 8, 2019 by KLRDMD 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnoe Posted February 9, 2019 Report Share Posted February 9, 2019 Upfront notice: I am a long-time user and fan of Foreflight. But... I’m mildly interested in the new feature “Airport 3D View” and have contacted Foreflight support about making it available as an add-on or ala-carte feature. It’s simply not worth an additional $100 (Performance Plus subscription) but I’d be willing to pay another $20-$25 to try it out for a year. Their reply offered some hope (that they may offer it as an add-on in the future) but for now they’re trying to entice people to upgrade to the higher subscription. If they get significant interest in making it an add-on that might help so if you're interested please drop them a note. The e-mail to inquire is team@foreflight.com The partial text of my e-mail and their reply was as follows: Inquiry: “With the introduction of your new feature “Airport 3D View” I thought it might be worth checking out but was disappointed that it’s only available as part of your Performance Plus subscription (which is overkill for my needs). I do realize that you’re offering a special on that subscription as an inducement, but Pro Plus is a much better fit for me. So… I thought I’d check to see if the new feature might be available as an add-on. In the past your website offered a “Build Your Own Plan” option at the bottom of the pricing page but that seems to have been discontinued. I was sorry to discover that, because I might be willing to add the “Airport 3D View” option as a $20-$25 subscription add-on. I simply can’t justify another $100 for that one feature.” Reply: Tom here - Thanks for your feedback. We try to offer a variety of features at different price points to accommodate different budgets. We often add new features to existing subscription levels for free. For example, Breadcrumbs was added for free to all subscription levels with ForeFlight 11 at no additional cost. Some new features are deemed to be premium features and are only available with a higher priced subscription. It is possible 3D maps may be included as an "ala-carte" feature in the future, but at this time, it is only available with Performance Plus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DualRatedFlyer Posted February 9, 2019 Report Share Posted February 9, 2019 Pshew. Thank God breadcrumbs are free 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
takair Posted February 10, 2019 Report Share Posted February 10, 2019 I purchased ForeFlight Pro USA many years ago. As I recall, it is somewhere around $150/ year. I really like the package and am hanging on to it for dear life. As I understand it, Foreflight grandfathers those who retain it, so pay attention to this if you still have the package, no going back once you “upgrade”. Anyway, not really excited about the incrementally high pricing with advanced packages. Did this start when they partnered with Jepp? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragsf15e Posted February 10, 2019 Report Share Posted February 10, 2019 (edited) Longtime foreflight user and love the app but also concerned about pricing. I even fly commercially and refuse to spend someone else’s money on performance pro. One thing that really bothered me as a cfi is that their Navlog in basic and pro doesn’t have leg fuel for each waypoint, only a flight total. Performance pro does... i need to pay $300 for a basic fuel planning function that every cfi and examiner should be asking for?! They do have leg fuel on the simplified Navlog above the moving map, but only performance pro can have it on the printable, “full” Navlog in Flights, seems weird. Edited February 10, 2019 by Ragsf15e Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steingar Posted February 10, 2019 Report Share Posted February 10, 2019 (edited) Sorry, guys with glass panels complaining about subscription fees just doesn’t cut it with me. Cry me a river. You spends for hotness, no matter what it is. Actually, the glass panels are cheaper by far than some other forms of hotness... Edited February 11, 2019 by steingar 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marauder Posted February 10, 2019 Report Share Posted February 10, 2019 Sorry, guys with glass panels complaining about subscription fees just doesn’t cut it with me. Cry me a river. You spends for Horne’s, no matter what it is. Actually, the glass panels are cheaper by far than some other forms of hotness... Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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