UKJim 502 Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Anyone know of any addon that can display approach plates as a panel in game? Cheers! Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Lookout for review going live on Thursday! Flight1 GeoAPR Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 There's a freeware app called pdf kneeboard. Can't remember where I downloaded it - probably flightsim.com. It works in-sim and can open and display any pdf, including multi-page pdfs. You can scroll from page to page, zoom, pan and rotate pages. If you move between pages, the app remembers the "state" of a page when you left it and when you return that page will be displayed at the zoom level, and position it was at when you scrolled off it. Coupled with a freeware pdf creator that let's you "print" any file as a pdf and a freeware pdf combiner (PDF Merge) it's very easy to create multi-page pdf files to use during flight with airport diagrams, flight plans, approach plates, etc. Will try to track this down with more details. John Link to post Share on other sites
Tim_A 995 Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Plan-G 3 will display pdf plates... Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 I had forgotten that I actually published an article documenting this, called "A Tale of Three Apps" here at MH. The crux of the article was to have all this on a separate, stand-alone device to use as a map/document viewer, but the PDF Kneeboard can be used quite efficiently within FS9 or FSX. It installs and runs as a module so shows up on the FS top-line menu and runs seamlessly within FS - easy to display and hide.. John Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted January 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 There's a freeware app called pdf kneeboard. Can't remember where I downloaded it - probably flightsim.com. It works in-sim and can open and display any pdf, including multi-page pdfs. You can scroll from page to page, zoom, pan and rotate pages. If you move between pages, the app remembers the "state" of a page when you left it and when you return that page will be displayed at the zoom level, and position it was at when you scrolled off it. Coupled with a freeware pdf creator that let's you "print" any file as a pdf and a freeware pdf combiner (PDF Merge) it's very easy to create multi-page pdf files to use during flight with airport diagrams, flight plans, approach plates, etc. Will try to track this down with more details. John Perfect exactly what I want - going to try it soon see if its all good! I looked at the GeoApr app but thought there wud b a free version somewhere Thanks guys! Link to post Share on other sites
SEATAC 400 Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Load them onto your iPad. That's what I do. Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted January 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 I have gone for PDFKneeboard - now I need some plates I will search the forum for good locations rather than posting here Link to post Share on other sites
simi_av8r 0 Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 you can go here for US approach plates, both in GIF and PDF formats: Click here and here for UK plates: Click here ...and here for the rest of Europe: Click here N.B. This site is rather difficult to navigate, and you have to register forit, but it is free and the only place for free, up-to-date European approach plates Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted January 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 you can go here for US approach plates, both in GIF and PDF formats: Click here and here for UK plates: Click here ...and here for the rest of Europe: Click here N.B. This site is rather difficult to navigate, and you have to register forit, but it is free and the only place for free, up-to-date European approach plates OMG Thanks for this!!!! I have taken a screenshot on one of my quick flights in the screenshots forum - this is with the Arlington Approach plate shown on the kneeboard in-game. Mission accomplished!!! THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!! Link to post Share on other sites
simi_av8r 0 Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 you can go here for US approach plates, both in GIF and PDF formats: Click here and here for UK plates: Click here ...and here for the rest of Europe: Click here N.B. This site is rather difficult to navigate, and you have to register forit, but it is free and the only place for free, up-to-date European approach plates OMG Thanks for this!!!! I have taken a screenshot on one of my quick flights in the screenshots forum - this is with the Arlington Approach plate shown on the kneeboard in-game. Mission accomplished!!! THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!! hint: there's a 'thanks' button on the bottom right of my post above..... Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted January 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 I wanted to thank all though Link to post Share on other sites
simi_av8r 0 Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 I wanted to thank all though of course...wasn't detracting from that, the others have been a great help too Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 Cheers Simi, that was a great help to me too Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted January 11, 2012 Report Share Posted January 11, 2012 WARNING: The US free-access site for approach plates, airport diagrams, sectionals, enroute charts, DPs, STARS, etc. etc. etc. will become restricted effective on April 5, 2012. After that time access will be restricted to business entities that have a contract with the FAA and no access by individuals is permitted. They will no doubt wish to package and sell the data to end users. Our local FS club is engaged in a project to download and caputre all of it before they close the doors. There are over 17,800 terminal procedure files and we've opted to buy those on DVD from the FAA (only about $16, with a sort/select/view application included). The files are pdf and the file names are not even remotely useful for determining which go with which airport. The viewing utility is necessary. The remainder is a much smaller number of files (about 150) but many of them, particularly sectionals (54) and Terminal Area Charts (30) are very large, even in zipped format. We estimate that we will have something over 20 GB of zipped data when we get it all. Each of us will have a 32 GB stick drive with everything on that. Note that this data is for the continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, Pacific Territories and Puerto Rico only. Get it while you still can. Our club has no intention of making this available beyond our own membership unless we are sure we're on solid legal ground. That's not entirely clear at this point, but will be less problematic once the downloaded documents have reached their expiration dates and are no longer "current". John Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,283 Posted January 12, 2012 Report Share Posted January 12, 2012 Sounds like a non tax type tax. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted January 12, 2012 Report Share Posted January 12, 2012 I think the operative term is "user fee". John Link to post Share on other sites
Tim_A 995 Posted January 12, 2012 Report Share Posted January 12, 2012 Sounds like they've struck some kind of exclusivity deal with Jepp et al. Can you say CARTEL? Trouble is, where the FAA leads, others follow. This spells potentially bad news for free data on the web, everywhere. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted January 12, 2012 Report Share Posted January 12, 2012 Well, the good news is, we don't have to worry about whether our charts are current. Once we've got them, we've got them. It's a huge amount of data, however. I've never bothered with trying to save them because I knew I could alway go to the site for them. I'd just download what I needed and dump it whan I was done with it. Now that that is changing, we've at least got a decent window of time to get what we need before they bar the door. John Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,283 Posted January 15, 2012 Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 Hi Guys and Gals, Little problem, I have installed the pdf Kneeboard mentioned above. Created a folder called modules in MSFSX folder and put the dll in it. Added code to FSX DLL.xml and the addon does appears in my menu bar. I can open it, in game and get a small grey box with PDF Kneeboard acroos the top. Now when I try to open a pdf from the popup, it crashes my sim. The pdf's I am using were placed in a folder in my download section. I run FSX w/SP2 on the Vista OS. Any help would be appreciated. :)Trying to get this up and running correctly so I can use it for the GARR2012 Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted January 15, 2012 Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 From their site... Compatibility:PDFKneeboard is packaged in two versions - one for FS9/2004 (pdfkneeboard##.zip) and one for FSX SP2 (pdfkneeboard##X.zip) You do have the correct version, right? I have not installed this in FSX but it works fine in FS9 under XP and Vista. John Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,283 Posted January 15, 2012 Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 Yes I have, John, I downloaded/reinstalled it again just to make sure. Started with a fresh flight and different aircraft just to make sure it wasn't happing from a saved flight. FSX still stops responding. The pdf's open fine on their own and i shouldn't think it matters where I store the files either. Another "Why always my computer?" moment. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted January 15, 2012 Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 The developer's name and e-mail are in the application text file. You might try giving him a shout and see what he has to say. John Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,283 Posted January 15, 2012 Report Share Posted January 15, 2012 K, thanks. That was my next step. I was thinking it was just something easy I had missed and that others might have gone through and figured out already. Edit Author replied and is offering support. I will post results. Link to post Share on other sites
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