Garmin Revolutionizes Aviation Charting with SmartCharts

[dkkim73]

1 hour ago, PeteMc said:

I also thought there should be a Pilot Lite for those that just want to use Pilot to update their DBs. 

You know, after my initial trial I missed GP because I could use it on my Android phone to do weather briefs during the day. I'll bet there is a pared-down set of features that people would pay for in a "lite" version. 

 

[toto]

5 hours ago, PeteMc said:

I always thought they should include the Basic in the OnePak and then have you pay for the Premium.  But I guess their Marketing people think it's working that way.

I thought a little bit about this - and I agree that it’s kind of a crazy model.

But anyway - I suspect they do this so you get the Premium features whenever you have an active OnePak subscription, but your base product subscription is independent. If they tied the base subscription to the OnePak and you paid separately for the Premium upgrade, then you could end up paying for a year of the Premium upgrade and have the base product disappear one day later when your OnePak expires. 

Given the cost of a OnePak I think it would be a significant competitive moat just to include the GP Premium product from soup to nuts. But I’m guessing that’s why they give you the upgrade and not the base subscription. 

[PeteMc]

1 hour ago, toto said:

Given the cost of a OnePak I think it would be a significant competitive moat just to include the GP Premium product from soup to nuts. But I’m guessing that’s why they give you the upgrade and not the base subscription. 

Totally agree!!!  But it is Garmin, which is why I didn't even go down that road!   As you said, the current model is crazy enough.  You're talking about Garmin doing something that makes sense. 

 

[Pinecone]

9 hours ago, exM20K said:

I thought this was the case, but it wasn’t obvious to me how to activate it.  I guess I need to look harder.

-dan

Make sure your basic package is listed in your flyGarmin account and uses the same log in.

[hammdo]

Nice deal for GARMIN Pilot:

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/garminapppro.php

edit:

Garmin must have notified them - new price now

[flyboy0681]

I went up with my instructor yesterday and shot several approaches from under the hood while using SmartCharts. I won't lie, it is considerably better than the government charts, mostly due to the removal of so much clutter. All that is presented is the information that I need to know, and the ability to select only the frequencies, briefing and missed tab at the top, well, is the icing on the cake.

[amillet]

I have a GTN750 and have used Foreflight for years. I tried GP when I started using FF but didn’t think it was an improvement. Starting to re-evaluate but my ADS-B in is a stratus 2 which doesn’t appear to be compatible with GP, so looks like I would have to buy a new Stratus. I think I’ll stick with FF which I’ve already learned how to use.

[flyboy0681]

20 hours ago, amillet said:

I have a GTN750 and have used Foreflight for years. I tried GP when I started using FF but didn’t think it was an improvement. Starting to re-evaluate but my ADS-B in is a stratus 2 which doesn’t appear to be compatible with GP, so looks like I would have to buy a new Stratus. I think I’ll stick with FF which I’ve already learned how to use.

You have a big, beautiful 750 (like me) and don't have it hooked up to a GDL-88?

[amillet]

13 hours ago, flyboy0681 said:

You have a big, beautiful 750 (like me) and don't have it hooked up to a GDL-88?

Correct. $$$$$$

[dkkim73]

Does anyone know if there's a way to enable internet-fed traffic on GP?

[hammdo]

Not in GP

[hammdo]

@Garmin Aviation Team, found something that I’m not sure how to override:

NOTAM for LNAV MDA but smart chart not updated and I don’t see a way to override:

-Don

 

[midlifeflyer]

6 hours ago, hammdo said:

@Garmin Aviation Team, found something that I’m not sure how to override:

NOTAM for LNAV MDA but smart chart not updated and I don’t see a way to override:

-Don

 

 

There isn’t at this point. Being able to annotate the chart or otherwise make changes due to NOTAMs and the like is one of the top two or three wish list items I’ve see mentioned.

[natdm]

I think I’m making the switch. Only thing I see missing is the camera feeds that FF has. Those would be great for places like the coasts and Alaska. 

[Thedude]

I made the switch and I'm happy, just got a flightstream 510 too to get the engine info live. I wish there were camera feeds though, that's huge to see some of the conditions on the coast.

[toto]

I’m exclusively a GP user … what are these camera feeds about?

[midlifeflyer]

12 hours ago, toto said:

I’m exclusively a GP user … what are these camera feeds about?

FAA program to provide real-time visual weather data. FF just began incorporating it into the airport pages. Here’s the FAA site. https://weathercams.faa.gov

This describes the program:

 https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/systemops/fs/alaskan/weather_cams

[natdm]

Decided against making the switch, sadly. 
 

The app is so much slower than Foreflight. Maybe it’s written in Java and runs in a VM in the iPad but it’s just slow. It’ll also glitch out a lot. I’ll click an airport and it’ll show details, then vanish. Last thing I need is that if I’m in a high pressure environment. 

You can’t annotate on SmartCharts and they’re not always right (they don’t seem to always adjust for NOTAMs which makes me lose faith in them). They also don’t persist my airplane category so I need to switch it every time. That seems like a simple oversight. 
 

No live camera feeds, no user comments, that’s a bummer. 
 

For at least one more year, I’ll stick to Foreflight.

[toto]

10 minutes ago, natdm said:

The app is so much slower than Foreflight. Maybe it’s written in Java and runs in a VM in the iPad but it’s just slow. It’ll also glitch out a lot. I’ll click an airport and it’ll show details, then vanish. Last thing I need is that if I’m in a high pressure environment. 

This doesn’t sound like it’s working right. I’m not an expert on all things GP, but I haven’t seen any particularly slow behavior or disappearing airport details - I wonder if there is a resource contention issue on your iPad or similar. 

Anyway - I’m just saying that your experience is not what I would consider acceptable, and I definitely would not use GP if I had the same.