Echoflight has reported that after Jan 23 they will no longer give out free plates on the web. :-(

bad news, but there are plenty of other sources I guesscould this have something to do with 9/11?

Hi,That is bad news, but it might have something to do with prohibited distribution of copyrighted material. I wouldn't be surprised if other sites are also subjected to this issue. I may be wrong though..I highly recommend getting your plates from your local pilot shop. The non-jep charts are very affordable and jep isn't bad either for localized areas (Express packs). The Simcharts program is also very good but the plates seem partially incomplete. I say if you're going to go realistic enough to actually FOLLOW an IAP (I do of course!) then use the real thing.. makes it that much more realistic :)-Damian[table border=0" cellspacing="30" cellpadding="0][tr][td align = "left"]Damian ClarkHiFi Simulation SoftwareDeveloper of ActiveSkyThe next-generation weather environment simulation for FS2002!http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky[/td][td]http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg][/td][/tr][/table://http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/ima...][/tr][/table

Ive posted this before, but its been awhile, so here is a reminder.....FBO's will give you any plates you want for FREE once they expire. All they need to do is clip off the header of the plate booklet (Im referring to NOAA charts in particular) to receive their credit and the rest of the charts basically get trashed. I know this option wont be available to everyone, everywhere, but it is another option for getting plates at no cost.Craig

Forgot to post that it doesnt surprise me that they will no longer be giving updated charts on the web. It has said Prototype on their page for a long time and I knew they were starting a subscription plan sometime in the future. It looks like they will keep these charts up, so hopefully you will still be able to download what they have now. For flightsimming it probably wont make any difference because the charts that exist rarely ever change (maybe GPS approaches moreso than others, but you cant use those in FS2002 yet anyway).Craig

I called and spoke with these people a year or so ago when EchoCharts were first published on the web. I was told that it was indeed a prototype of their new EchoCharts CD subscription. They were forcasting last August for a release. Guess they got delayed a bit :) Anyway, I was told then that this would eventually come to an end and that I was encouraged to look into the full product at a later time.It's too bad to see them go, but not unexpected. Clever marketing tactic though :)J

>That is bad news, but it might have something to do with prohibited >distribution of copyrighted material. I wouldn't be surprised if >other sites are also subjected to this issue. I may be wrong >though..That's probably not the reason. FAA produced documents have no copyright in the US, per Title 17.From what I can recall this was never meant to be permanant, but merely a prototype of a more permanant for pay system. Looks like its finally ready to go in that direction.Considering how much work they were putting into scanning those charts every cycle I'm really surprised it lasted this long for free.Regards.Ernie.

http://www.americanflyers.net/ap/default.asp...take it easy on their servers! They're not the most current, nor are they great scans. But it'll do the job well!-Germ(Edit: It does talk about a "chart basket", but don't worry. It's just there so you can bundle plates together for an airport and then have them sent to you in a customized ZIP file)