I have had great fun today, a new piece of software to play with. The Aware+ GPS is great at what it does, but putting in a route has always been it’s weakpoint. Airbox have just released a piece of software that allows you do all your planning on the PC and export it to the Aware+ called FastPlan. This has just made a great product even better. I ordered it yesterday with the Notams and Weather subscription.
I received my FastPlan software today and I am impressed. I am still playing with it and I am sure there are features I have not found yet.
A couple of features I do like is:-
- showing the notams on the planning map, and being able to turn off notams that don’t apply.
- very easy method of plotting the route on the map
- easily entering user waypoints
- once the aware is synchronised it shows all your previous trips with take off and landing times – useful for filling out logbooks!
A couple of things I don’t like (though there are plans to solve both these items in the near future):-
- The notams are not transferred to the aware
- the start/end/waypoint names are not transferred to the Aware only their positions
Overall quite pleased, and if the development of the software goes with the same speed as the early development of the Aware, this will be a capable and easy to use planning tool.
