Razor's Edge Software is
new the flight simulation market. Airplan is a software package
designed for private pilots. Lee Glover decided to make this package
available for flight simulation use in his spare time and so AirPlan Sim
was born. This package is actually available in two versions,
AirPlan For Microsoft Flight Simulator and AirPlan Sim. AirPlan For
Microsoft Flight Simulator includes everything in AirPlan Sim plus free
database and product updates along with all the flight planning tools in
the professional AirPlan Suite.
I decided to review the
Sim version because of its reduced cost ($49.00). According to
Razor's Edge these are the features:
Installing the package takes about 10 minutes.
The largest amount of that time is used to install all the included maps.
AirPlan Sim comes complete with Sectionals and WAC's for the entire
United States. Now I've got your attention; this certainly got mine.
These charts are the real deal. They are recently expired charts so
the information is pretty much up-to-date. If you have ever priced WAC and
Sectional charts they can get very expensive. This alone makes this version's
$49 price pretty reasonable.
The manual is quite extensive and covers every portion
of installation and the software features. I had no problems finding
information quickly. It is available from the help tab in HTML
format. If you don't find your answer here then help is just an
email away. I found Razor's Edge to be quick in responding to any
question I had.
There are several different ways you can run AirPlan.
I installed it on a second computer and used an Ethernet crossover cable to
connect directly between them. A second computer is a must for
this software. It can be run on the same computer but the maps take
up a lot of memory and will have adverse effects on FS2002's frame rate. In order
to get the two computers to talk to one another you will need to install Peter Dowson's
WideFs. This is available in our library and took me about 5 minutes to install.
I decided to do a flight plan from Barstow-Daggett to Visalia, CA. I'm pretty familiar with this flight from traveling up to Lake Tahoe for last weekend's conference. The first screen you will encounter is the New Flight Plan Weight and Balance Calculations. I selected the default 172 and loaded it up with one pilot, 50 lbs of baggage and 45 gallons of fuel. All the planes that come with FS2002 are included in the profiles along with a few extras. They can be edited and new ones added. This can be a bit complicated if you are not a designer. One thing I didn't like was that all the planes are indexed by tail number. This made if a little difficult to find the plane I wanted. I would like to see them indexed by aircraft instead.
Next, is either to select Begin/End or Use Map. I found it easier to type in the information. The third screen will ask you for leg data including cruising altitude, engine RPM, wind direction and speed, air temperature, and rate of descent. Only RPM and cruising altitude are required. Once the basics are put in you will get the map with your flight superimposed. The flight plan can now be edited. The flight plan used was KDAG BASIL V12 PMD V197 EHF V23 PIXEY KVIS at 8,000 feet.
The Sectional map is turned on in this picture. Notice the detail and the restricted airspace between Daggett and Visalia. This area has Fort Irwin, Edwards AFB and the China Lake Naval Range which explains all the restricted airspace. Editing is done by dragging the line to the waypoint to be added. I had no problems finding the waypoints in my flight plan and adding them to it. Moving around and zooming in on the map is done easily using the button above the map or right clicking and selecting the feature to be used. Another neat feature I like was being able to click on any airport or navaid on the map and getting a pop-up window with extensive information on it.
This picture shows the flight plan after I edited it to add the waypoints and turned off the sectional map. The low altitude victor airways are shown as well. Different levels and types of terrain are easily identifiable along with the restricted areas. The map can be decluttered by turning off the navaids, airways, and airports using the buttons located under the map. Exporting it to FS2002 was also very easy. A couple of mouse clicks and I was done. Weather information is available via the Internet from the drop down menu's. Some of the services listed require memberships. I used the National Weather Service link to check weather for the nearest station which was Edwards AFB.
Time to go flying. In order to use the moving map feature WideFs has to be started on the computer running AirPlan. The server portion is done automatically by FS2002. Once this is done select Tools and then Microsoft Flightsim Moving Map (or X-Plane Moving Map for that simulator). After loading everything up and starting the moving map my plane can be see parked at Barstow-Daggett. Notice the GPS Date Window. This is also a nice feature. The map is set to 60 nm scale and this brings about one of the noticeable things I don't like—as you go down in scale say 60 nm and lower the map gets very grainy and difficult to read. This is because of the level they were canned in and I'm not sure that it could be easily fixed besides I don't really think most will be using it below the 60 NM scale anyway. The AirPlan software had no problems keeping up with my aircraft and I found myself constantly looking out the window and comparing what I saw on the ground with the chart. I think this will be more helpful for low VFR flight then high altitude jets. Bush pilots will especially like the moving map.
If you are a X-Plane fan then this package is for you. Yes, that's right, it has X-Plane support. I could be wrong but I think this is the first commercial flight planning
package with support for X-Plane. It is limited, basically the
moving map interface is about it. You can't import or export flight
plans but I still think this is a great feature. I used X-Plane
Version 6.30 to test this feature. (Lee Glover at Razor's Edge told
me that older versions won't work properly because Austin Meyers
changed the date, so you may have some problems unless you get the latest.)
I didn't try it with an earlier version to test this. It took me
about 15 minutes to figure this out. The manual was not exactly
correct on which buttons to turn on in the Data Output Section of X-Plane.
The three you want to use are:
After figuring this out and getting the IP address for
the computer running AirPlan I had it up and running. Did the same
test flight from Daggett to Visalia. I was happy with the results.
Lastly, AirPlan is now supporting GoFlight products.
It is in the early stages and I was unable to test this since I don't own
any of GoFlight's equipment. I did see it demonstrated at the
conference and found it worked well and was pretty useful. There was
no mention of it in the manual but I found the executable in the AirPlan
directory.
In summary
Razor's Edge has adopted a very popular private pilot
flight planning tool for use with FS2002 and X-Plane. I found it
very easy to install and use. The Sectionals and WAC charts are by
far its strongest feature. Flight Simmers that spend most of their
time in slower prop planes and on lower VFR flights will get the most use
out of this software, but I can see its use for just about any flight.
The price is a bit steep but you get the option of
forgoing some of the features for the Sim version for $49. I
strongly suggest anyone that is considering this program to download the
demo before ordering it. I was a bit skeptical about it at first but
have grown to really enjoy the moving map and all the other features this
software provides.
The program is available at the Razor's Edge Software website.
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