>Anybody knowing of nav-planning software, which can run on Mac
>computers
Gert - you might want to look at GPSy <www.gpsy.com> or MacGPS
<www.macgpspro.com>, as they both incorporate some sort of planning
features.
If buying a portable GPS, consider what physical interface it has for
the computer. There seems at last to be a slow trend among GPS
manufacturers towards USB instead of the old serial port. Keyspan and
others make USB-serial adaptors which current Macs can use, but
experience of those seems a bit variable. Obviously much neater to
have USB on the GPS.
Taking a step backwards, if you don't need or want a graphical
interface on the software, there are plenty of examples of
non-graphical VFR flight planning solutions around as spreadsheets.
John Race marketed one some time back for MS-DOS Lotus-123, described
in a Plot magazine article in June 1991. I bought a copy and
translated for my own use to the Mac spreadsheet Resolve, and then
later to Excel when Claris ceased supporting Resolve. I also have
copies of several other people's spreadsheet versions with different
levels of sophistication.
Just to see if it could be done, I built my own text-interface
version of the classic VFR wind-triangle stuff as a FileMaker Pro
database, but it's not really ready for public view as it has no
proper user interface. Anyone with FileMaker Pro 5 or 6 installed is
welcome to have a copy, though, and let me know your opinons! I guess
if I do any more work on it, it will be in FileMaker Pro 7 as that's
where my development is now concentrated.
regards
Rowland
--
| Rowland Carson PFA #16532 <http://home.clara.net/rowil/aviation/>
| 710 hours building Europa #435 G-ROWI e-mail <rowil@clara.net>
|