ARINC DirectSM today announced the addition of a powerful new flight planning capability — graphical route manipulation — to its popular flight planning service for business aviation.
Graphical route manipulation, also known as “rubber-banding,” greatly simplifies route selection and allows pilots to easily modify waypoints on a flight plan to accommodate airspace closures, thunderstorms, or other contingencies.
The new feature is included the latest release of ARINC Direct flight planning service at no additional cost to users. ARINC Direct will demonstrate its graphical route manipulation at Booth N4421 of NBAA 2011, October 10-12 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“We have implemented the ability to dynamically modify flight plan routes, using our popular SkyVector™ mapping application,” said Gary Gambarani, Director of Flight Operations. “By simply stretching and dropping a route line on the map, the pilot can obtain a new waypoint for computing and filing a flight plan. This greatly reduces tedious manual entry and minimizes the possibility of errors.”
In Auto mode, the system automatically snaps to a drop point and inserts the nearest Navaid or waypoint into the flight plan. In Prompt mode, the pilot is asked to confirm the selection of each waypoint before it is inserted.
When combined with ARINC’s comprehensive map overlays including SIGMETS, weather radar and turbulence, the new dynamic route modification feature makes ARINC’s powerful flight planning tool even easier to use.
“Last year, we added the SkyVector global aeronautical charts with zooming and scrolling to provide a powerful alternative to paper charts for ARINC Direct subscribers,” continued Gambarani. “The introduction of dynamic route manipulation this year takes our flight planning and re-planning service to a whole new level of convenience.”
In addition to graphical route modification, ARINC Direct this year introduced a range of other enhancements including a new cockpit application for the iPad™, and applications for Direct TV, Flight Risk, VoIP, and Call Signs.