Garmin is bringing enhanced flight plan filing capabilities to Garmin Pilot, which now incorporates the option to file flight plans directly with Lockheed Martin Flight Services.
This results in increased flexibility and instantaneous flight plan delivery when filing flight plans within Garmin Pilot for iOS and Android customers, Garmin officials said.
Flight plans may be filed without a username/password combination and are made available to air traffic control immediately. Pilots may also select an FAA domestic flight plan filing option within the app, depending on preference and location.
Garmin Pilot iOS has incorporated a redesigned Trip Planning page, which includes a few additional features that provide access to pertinent flight plan information, company officials noted.
Within Trip Planning, pilots may view specific details regarding their flight plan and display details pertaining to their flight in a navigation log format.
The addition of a weather brief icon within the Trip Planning page allows pilots to receive a legal weather briefing via Garmin Pilot, which displays textual weather products including SIGMETs, AIRMETs, METARs, TAFs, PIREPs and more.
Pilots who use Garmin Pilot on their Android tablet or phone will find the user interface has been updated to reflect the latest Android design concepts. The home screen main menu has been transformed into a navigation drawer and split screen menu items that are now displayed in tabs for ease of use. The user interface has been redesigned to provide quick and easy access to pertinent information in-flight.
To access new features found within the Flight Plan section of Garmin Pilot, pilots can tap the header from any screen to create or edit a flight plan.
The addition of a new summary section also incorporates extra flight plan details, such as distance, fuel, ETA, ETE and more. Summary details can be selected to display flight plan data using winds aloft calculations during the planning phase of flight, or pilots can leverage GPS information to display real-time flight plan data throughout an actual flight.
Garmin Pilot also automatically generates a Chart Binder for all enroute airports within an active flight plan. As customers build a flight plan, charts are automatically downloaded and separated into departure, destination and flight plan binders for quick and easy access to Instrument Approach Procedures (IAPs) throughout a route of flight.