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Notes From The AeroNav Digital Chart Vendor Meeting
My notes from the meeting at AeroNav today regarding fees for the redistribution of digital charts.Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
John, try visiting http://www.vfrcopilot.com. They have eSectionas in three flavors. It gives you secs, tacs, flyways as digital charts and lets you to flight planning right on the chart. You can then print TripKit pages that fit on your kneeboard. Their eSectionals HomeBase edition is only $15 ONE TIME cost and you get your home sectional FREE FOR LIFE and you can purchase additional charts as needed. Their US Edition is $50/year and you get the lower 49 states. eSectionals all editions include the current airports database and the FAA obstacles database.
This service is no different than all the others that will have to dramatically adjust pricing to reflect the new FAA policies. The "FOR LIFE" part might be limited to the lifetime of free charts from the FAA.
I find it interesting that the paper charts are not selling. I have noticed that, since they stopped crediting FBO's for outdated and unsold charts like they used to do, the FBO's have been forced to stop stocking most charts. That makes it very difficult for the average pilot to BUY a paper chart. I have been unable to get anything other than a local chart for years unless I order it through the mail. I solved the problem by subscribing to Howie Keefe's airchart system and the VFR and IFR atlas type charts. Unfortunately, they, like the electronic charts, are not very good for flight planning. Please, just make the paper charts available again!
Numbers I've seen from the meeting were about $130 per pilot.
Without question Foreflight subscriptions are gonna go up. I must say the current annual fee has been worth every friggin' penny..
If FAA dramatically increases the cost of charts by charging for data that they control, does this open up an entrepreneurship opportunity for someone to start producing chart data and selling it more cheaply? The task of producing chart data might be formidable, but its not superhuman; FAA does it, after all! And its hard to imagine that the private sector couldn't do it more efficiently, which is to say, less expensively, and thereby undercut FAA's price. Its not fair to have to compete against a tax-subsidized entity like FAA, but I think their proposal reveals that they're not competitive even with taxpayer support. And there are liability issues, but frankly, in a contest between the government, which can claim soverign immunity, and a private sector vendor that can insure itself, if prices were equal I'd go with the private sector in a heartbeat. FAA might just be creating a significant competitive opportunity here.