Keep your iPhone in the Flightbag
Our latest version of the AeroPlus Flight Plan app for iPhone comes with support for the new Apple Watch. Read here how you can monitor and manage your active flight plans from your watch without having to take your iPhone out of your flight bag.
Flightplan Status Updates
You filed your flight plan and want to be sure you are kept up-to-date about any changes that might occur to your active flight plan. If you filed an IFR flight plan, your status updates come straight from Eurocontrol. Here are some of the status updates you could receive on your Apple Watch:
- Acceptance message: your filed flight plan is accepted by Eurocontrol;
- Rejected message: you filed a flight plan but it was rejected;
- Delay accepted message: you delayed departure and this delay was accepted;
- SAM messages: Slot-Allocation-Messages can be received by you as pilot-in-command any time before your estimated off-block time (EOBT) and could be due to heavy departure/arrival traffic in the terminal area or for other reasons.
With Apple Watch and our AeroPlus Flightplan app, you do not only get push notifications thereby receiving status updates from Eurocontrol or ATC, but you can actually read the content of the message received right on your watch without having to take your iPad or iPhone out of your pocket or flight bag.
Reminders
We will remind you to close your flight plan after landing or to file a general aviation report (GAR) to notify UK Border Force and police in case you plan to fly inbound to the UK. In the case you land at a non-towered airport, you might have to close the flight plan. In some cases, you might have to call ATC or you could (additionally) send an arrival message from our app into the AFTN network ATC works with.
Route Info
Once in the cockpit, it is often handy to have the flight plan route you filed at hand. This helps you configure that route into your avionics equipment such as the G1000 or Perspective system from Garmin. Or it helps you figure out the departure procedure you might expect to get with your clearance delivery (in the first case that would be the Woody 1B departure out of Rotterdam).
Waypoints
Underneath the Route option that shows you the route as you filed in your flight plan, you will find the Waypoints option. The waypoints option shows you the waypoints where the route changes course. In some cases such as in the above case, the airway N872 goes from WOODY to CIV, but meets other waypoints like NIK along the way. As they are still on the same airway, these waypoints are not depicted in the Route as filed. However, if the airway bents at such a waypoint, the NIK waypoint would show up in the Waypoints section. Not all aircraft avionics systems can easily deal with airways. You can add an airway in the G1000 or Garmin Perspective system, However, if your aircraft has a 430(W) Garmin unit installed in it, you are limited to entering waypoints. In that case, the Waypoints section is the place where to look.
File Flight Plans from your Apple Watch
You can use your watch to file a flight plan, cancel it or even delay your flight plan. If you depart from a non-towered airport or from an airport where the tower is closed, you can send a departure message from your watch when you are about to depart from the runway. Of if you e.g. land at an airport at night where the tower is closed or at a non-towered airport, you can send an arrival message into the ATC system. In that case, it can be wise to still call ATC in addition to sending the message. The flight plans are all available in a list from where you can zoom in to see the details of a specific flight plan.
Delay Flightplans
There is nothing easier than to delay your departure and flight plan straight from your Apple Watch. You can send an initial delay message or repeat this to delay another time. Of course, you will get feedback on your watch informing you if you delay request was accepted.
We will be adding more features in the near future such as support for Siri. If you have any suggestions, don’t hesitate to contact us and tell us what you have in mind. Apple currently supports the Apple Watch in a combination with your iPhone and does not support yet the combination iPad with an Apple Watch. You can still use your iPad along the side, but you can only link the Apple Watch to your iPhone so that one needs to be available nearby in your flight bag for this all to work.
Check out this app or one of our other aviation apps such as our AeroPlus Aviation Weather app in the Apple AppStore.