Tuesday 21 May 2013

Greetings, goVFR !

I recently came across the free web-based VFR planning site goVFR  ( goVFR.com) . It has a nice GoogleMaps-based interface, and will therefore appeal to pilots who like using GoogleMaps for flight/nav planning --especially in Switzerland and neighbouring countries where the site includes airspace overlays.

I've now got around to testing the inter-operability between iNavCalc and goVFR. Here is a summary of my findings.

Note: rather than focusing on the GoogleMap functionality (both iNavCalc and goVFR have some similarities in that regard --- and I would expect that users will stick with what they know/like), I wanted to explore the portability of data between the two platforms.

I'm pleased to be able to report the following:

  1. the gpx and fpl files exported from iNavCalc can be successfully imported to goVFR 
  2. the gpx and fpl files exported from goVFR can be successfully imported to iNavCalc 
  3. the gpx and fpl files exported from goVFR can be successfully processed via the iNavCalc email interface (i.e., simply attach the gpx or fpl file to an email and send to plogs@flylogical.com ). This enables the goVFR users to easily obtain NAVCM frequenvies, NOTAMs, TAF/METARs, plus the iNavCalc PLOG (as an alternative or as a complement to the goVFR PLOG).
These positive findings are a testament to the benefits of software publishers adopting standard formats such as gpx for sharing information across systems. It is your data and you should be able to exploit it on any manner of systems you choose to use.

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