AOPA Flight Planner now Garmin friendly

“We’re listening to our members,” said Eric Rush of AOPA’s flight planning products team, “and a popular request was integration with the Garmin Pilot app. Today we’re happy to announce that we’ve added that to our suite of supported apps.”

From a pure flight planning standpoint, a laptop or desktop computer is handy because the screen is larger than a tablet device, he explained. The idea is for pilots to begin their flight planning with desktop or laptop computers and then email the resulting flight log to themselves. Opening that email on a portable iOS device such as an iPad or iPhone provides the ability to launch Garmin Pilot and simultaneously import the planned route into the app.

“It’s more convenient to use a desktop or a laptop instead of a small portable device where you have to zoom, scroll, pan, rinse and repeat,” said Rush, an instrument-rated pilot who was an early adopter of paperless cockpit technology.

“The key is that our flight planner works with many different EFB apps so there’s a sense of collaboration rather than competition,” said Rush. “Currently, AOPA’s flight planning software will work with five of the most popular EFB’s out there.” He reminded Garmin Pilot users to make sure they had the most recent version of the app for full functionality.

Rush said pilots could “send this email anywhere you want. If you have a flying buddy you can send the flight plan navigation data to them too. And the cool thing about that is they can use it on their own EFB even if they’re using one from another company.”

Since its introduction, the AOPA Flight Planner has undergone steady improvements with an eye on making flying safe, economical, and more fun. In recent months, a predictive weather tool was added along with airport filters that help pilots select an intermediate stop along a route. These enhancements, along with others, help make trip planning more enjoyable for pilots.

“Being able to send planned routes to EFB devices has been one of the most popular features we have added to the AOPA Flight Planner," said Rush. "There will probably be more added to the list in the near future… but that’s another story.”