Real paper Charts

[Muley 3]

About 3 years ago i managed to get hold of some real charts used by Easy Jet in Europe. Various stuff from Gatwick to Bonn etc. They are great and i love using them for flights in the NGX and more importantly they work and are functional within the sim.

 

I got them from ebay but is there a way i can get hold of them from another source? I was even thinking of emailing my local airport and seeing what i could dig up? Or would i just be wasting there time?

 

Can anyone help?

 

Sorry should have posted this in the general forum.

[Fabo 213]

The best way? Print them yourself. But. There is always a but...

 

The charts you have from easyJet are most likely Jeppesens (or maybe LIDO, or Navtech). Problem is, those charts are commercial, and update service costs big money. While Jeppesens are the most available of the three, they are still quite hard to get hold of on regular basis. The other two are almost non-existant for the average simmer. There used to be a product, called Simcharts, but it has been long since discontinued. So, unless you work for an airline, and have access to electronic charts databases, tough luck.

 

(note: Getting current paper charts is quite much impossible, as the airlines who get them, obviously, keep them while they are valid. Here and there, you might run into non-valid charts, which have been changed with an update. This might be your best bet if you have a contact in an airline, or a GA operator using Jepps - many bizjet type ops do - and, sometimes, you might even get lucky when contacting such an operator out of the blue. However, as it is often the case that whoever getts such charts, attempts to sell them at ebay and such, airlines are not much open to giving old series out)

 

There are, however, freely available charts. Every ICAO member country is required to supply their charts for a cost of making them (physically - the cost of printing, or cost of making a CD/DVD, shipping). This also means, that it has to be available on the internet for free (if available online, however most countries AIPs are).

This is great, in principle, and if you want to fly in Europe, you dont even have to go AIP hunting at different national websites, since there is a central repository at Eurocontrol, but there is still one big but.

 

Wonder why airlines pay huge money to Jeppesen or LH Systems(LIDO) for charts when they are available online for free? Well, thing is, Jepps use a single format throughout the world. LIDOs use also the same format throughout the world (different from Jepp). Which is great, because the information is always where you know it will be, be it TA or altitude constraint. The but comes now - every country can keep their own distinct format for their AIP publication. That means, if you have an easyJet flight rotation LGW-AMS-BRU-ORY, you will have to use 4 different formats of charts, with information in different places. Which is manageable if you do a flight here and there and take couple minutes to get to know the situation, but is definitely not manageable when the ATC has changed your departure route for 3rd time and now wants you to do a direct to some damn VOR that is not even on your route...

[Muley 3]

Thanks Fabo. I know it's easy to just print them myself from the many sources on-line etc but i really like the (you guessed right) jepp chart booklets that they do with the really thin paper.

 

I guess i will just keep plugging away at the airlines and see if i get lucky.

 

Thanks for a great answer it opens up loads more questions.

[killkenny1 22]

Fabo, are you a RL pilot? Because you always answer a question very, very well. After reading your replies, I never have any further questions.

 

As for topic, well Google is your friend. just write "[airport's ICAO code, i.e. ULLI] charts", hit enter, print and voila. Most of them are dated though, and sometimes nav data on the plane doesn't add up with charts (some name changes usually, no biggy), but in the end it still helps you to get the idea. And having even dated charts is worthy. I remember I had a talk with AT controller from my local airport, since I fly there it was interesting what kind of approaches they usually give and so on, and he took out same charts I use to sim .

[Fabo 213]

Fabo, are you a RL pilot? Because you always answer a question very, very well. After reading your replies, I never have any further questions.

 

I am not a pilot, but I have been around simming and real for a while and I try to do my best. So thank you for your kind words

[Houghton11 12]

Check the recycle bin at your local airport at the next cycle change :wink:. If you want some Canadian ones I could scam some for ya no probs. I have found it harder to scam overseas Jepps and such.

 

Domestically ours are produced by NavCanada, and are all bound and covered with each cycle, making them easy to give away. They problem with the Jepps for the overseas stuff is our updates come basically in a big shrink-wrapped bundle/mess of that delicate-thin-bible-paper, and we replace the existing ones within a binder. In the end you have this kind of messy, kind-of-beat-up, un-bound handful of paper. Unless someone's already arranged to keep em, it's just a bit of the pain in the to keep somewhere to give away. You tend to just chuck the stuff.

 

Jepp does produce these "Trip Kits" which are a one-off-current unit that doesn't come with any subscription to be kept current. If you know any ferry-pilots or maintenance places that ship aircraft these are the things to grab. For someone with a serious interest in FS, and willing to put aside around $800 US for their own brand new copy, it may be a 'feasible' option as well. For $800 bucks though, it's probably better to buy an iPad and work with all the .pdfs out there!

 

Otherwise maybe just post a request on PPRUNe or something and get someone to PM ya. It does kind of peeve me when I see these things for sale on ebay. If i'm going through doing revisions, I kind of make a point of asking around if anybody's kids or something wants them before I chuck em. Others aren't so nice :(. I certainly wouldn't sell them for personal profit. It's both unethical and a pretty greasy thing really.