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If you cannot see the links or images in this newsletter, click here to read it from our Web site or copy and past this URL into your Web browser: http://www.seattleavionics.com/newsletters
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Dear Voyager User,
Happy New Year, fellow pilot!
I don't know about for you, but for Seattle Avionics, this has been one heck of a start to the new year.
- Aviation Consumer gave our free flight planner, FreeFlight, the clear #1 rating of all free software flight planners. As you know, there are a lot of them so the competition was stiff.
- Aviation Consumer gave our paid-for flight planner, Voyager SmartPlan Premier, the #1 rating for power and flexibility. We've now won this the last two times (that is, since Voyager was created). More on this below.
- Seattle Avionics has expanded and moved offices.
- We introduced new versions of both Voyager 4 and the older Voyager 3 to add new magnetic variation data from the US government. Without these updates (Voyager 4.36 and Voyager 3.71), Voyager will not function properly.
- Our Black Friday special, in late November, set an all-time one day sales record for us. If you missed out this year, mark your calendars for November 26, 2010.
Flight Log is a recurring newsletter for all Voyager users, with the latest Voyager news, tips, and tricks. I'm very interested in your feedback, either to the newsletter or to Voyager itself. Please send any comments or suggestions to me directly at
This pretty much sums up what Aviation Consumer has recently written about Voyager.
 #1 - Aviation Consumer
Where to begin? In November, Aviation Consumer reviewed all the free flight planners out there. As you know, there are a lot of them. Their conclusion was simple and unequivocal: If you want a simple yet powerful system for your PC, Voyager FreeFlight is clearly #1. And, in terms of full disclosure, it also said that FltPlan.com was the best Web-based flight planner (we don't make one).
In January, Aviation Consumer continued with paid-for flight planners like Voyager SmartPlan Premier. Here they used the following phrases to describe SmartPlan Premier:
"...Voyager 4 offers more flight planning capabilities and a better system for viewing weather than any other program out there."
"It's the smartest smart router out there."
"Routing can be by best time or (fuel) efficiency, take fuel prices into account and will warn of potential hazards."
"...more slick tricks such as toggling a scanned chart on and off at any time and integrated Airnav and Flight Guide info."
"...it's the most integrated and powerful program of the lot."
Their conclusion was that Voyager is the most powerful and "smartest" of the flight planners. They also said, quite correctly, that you need a reasonably powerful machine to run it. The good news is that the definition of "reasonably powerful" has changed quite a bit in the past two years such that any machine made in the last few years should run Voyager 4 just fine. This even includes most of the new and very inexpensive netbooks so long as they have at least 2 GB of RAM.
The Aviation Consumer article also said, within the realm of paid-for planners, if you just want something more basic, you might consider something besides Voyager SmartPlan Premier. We agree. If your needs are simple, don't pay a dime for flight planning; follow Aviation Consumer's advice and get the best free flight planner out there: Voyager FreeFlight. Best of all, as your needs expand, you won't have to learn a whole new system because you can upgrade FreeFlight to the full Voyager without installing any new software.
 New OfficesAh, more space! As you probably know, we recently signed an agreement with Honeywell to supply the data to their exciting Bendix/King AV8OR ACE product. And, as you also might know, our new Voyager SkyPad flight tablet has been our best-selling product since the day it was introduced. Thus, we've been very busy and desperately needed more space. We have kept the same phone number and the same mailing address so you shouldn't see any change. (Ok, a very sharp eye will notice our fax number has changed. Does anyone use a fax machine anymore?)
Recent Sales Extended - Just Until Wednesday
To celebrate our new offices and the great news from Aviation Consumer, we sent email special offers to existing FreeFlight and paid-for customers. The results have been great but we have to admit that our timing could have been better. The office move took down our phone lines for a bit and, in the usual mayhem of a move, we've been slow getting back to folks on email. Thus, the offers have been extended until end of the day Wednesday(January 27, 2010).
The offers are listed below. Click any to take advantage of it. They all expire on Wednesday.
» $99 for any Voyager module (usual price $199) except XM weather. SmartPlan Premier, SmartPlates, or GlassView. More info. Buy.
» Half-price annual ChartData renewals. $49 for 12 months of VFR ChartData, $99 for IFR ChartData (which includes all VFR data, then adds approach plates and IFR charts) ChartData, and $149 for EFB ChartData (includes everything in the IFR level plus geo-referenced approach plates). More info. Buy.
» Just for FreeFlight users: $99 for VFR pilots to upgrade to SmartPlan Premier plus 6 months of VFR ChartData or $149 for IFR pilots to upgrade to SmartPlan Premier, SmartPlates and 6 months of IFR ChartData. More info. Buy.
Again, all of these expire on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.
Voyager 4.36
The FAA maintains a data table that lets software compute magnetic variation for any point on Earth for any given date -- within a five year period. That five year period expired on December 31, 2009. We revised Voyager with the new data before that time and sent an email alert to every user. However, as it happens, we did miss something when we revised the software and had an even newer version available on January 3, 2010. When you launched Voyager after January 3, it should have alerted you to upgrade. If not (and you have a current ChartData subscription, which is required for all updates), simply start Voyager and select Update Application from the Tools menu.
Voyager FreeFlight does not have an automatic update mechanism like the paid-for version. If you're running FreeFlight 4.35 or below, you'll need to download and install Voyager again to upgrade to 4.36. You can check which version you're running by selecting About Voyager from the Help menu. If you need to download FreeFlight again, use any of the URLs below:
Voyager 3.71
In the same email alert I just mentioned, we also said that the old Voyager 3.x line, which included outdated magnetic variation data, would not be revised to include the new data so we could focus on newer versions of Voyager. I also mentioned that I invited comments about this. As it happens, we had precisely five customers request a continuation of Voyager 3.x (and I know that at least three of them have since upgraded to Voyager 4.36 anyway) but we decided to extend the life of Voyager 3.x slightly anyway. We updated the Voyager 3.x line to version 3.71 to include the new magnetic variation data. No other changes were made to the software and none are planned.
While we strongly encourage you to update to the Voyager 4 line, if you absolutely must continue running Voyager 3.x, you can download the updated version from:
Join The Club
Seattle Avionics doesn't have an official support forum because we prefer to handle technical support issues on a one-to-one basis. However, we've been asked about a forum for years and some enterprising Voyager users took it upon themselves to create such a group. While we make no promise to answer questions on the forum, you will find a number of folks who probably will. And, to be honest, we have a hard time staying away when someone is talking about our baby so you're likely to find us jumping in from time to time.
Tips and Tricks
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Best Time? Least Fuel? Voyager's autorouter can easily plan your flight for minimizing either time or fuel consumption. To do this, make sure that your plane's profile is set to Advanced and you've entered performance data for different altitudes (Lists/Planes / <Your plane> / Edit / Performance / Advanced). If you don't enter this altitude-based data, best time and least fuel are the same. Think about it.
But computers being computers, they will sometimes make decisions based on very slight differences where a human might make a different choice. For example, if flying at 14,000 ft versus 8,000 ft saves 2 minutes of flying time, a human might decide to fly low and go without oxygen while the computer would pick 14,000 ft. This is easy to change. Click to see a table of different flying times vs. fuel consumption at different altitudes. |
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Export to your GPS. If you're not using a SkyPad (tisk tisk), you can export your flight plan to your favorite Garmin, Bendix/King or many other GPS units. With the flight plan open, simply select Send to Device or Application from the File menu or click on the toolbar. |
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Using Multiple Computers. Your Voyager license allows you to install Voyager on up to three computers and we encourage it. For example, plan your flight on a work desktop machine but review it later on a home laptop. Voyager has a unique feature called Web Synch that makes this especially easy.
Simply click on one machine and Voyager connects to our Web server and compares the flight plans and user settings (pilots, planes, etc.) there with what's on your computer. Voyager and the server then make sure that each has the latest and greatest version. Thus, after you plan the flight on the work machine, click and go home. On your home laptop, click and the new flight plan is magically transferred. |
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Installing on a New Computer. Everyone seems to get a new computer from time to time. The easiest way to do this is to use the Web Synch feature (above) from your existing machine then download a new copy of Voyager from our Web site to get the latest version and latest data. You should never install from an old disk or download. When you install Voyager to the new machine, you'll be asked to enter your email address. Make certain to use the same email address that you originally purchased Voyager with and use for Web Synch. In that way, the new Voyager installation will automatically pick up your settings and flight plans without any typing.
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Fuel Stop Frequency. By default, Voyager plans fuel stops based on the applicable FAA fuel reserve minimums (30 minutes for day VFR, 45 for IFR and night VFR). However, sometimes our planes have larger bladders than we do and you might prefer more frequent stops. Or, when you land, you want to ensure that the airport has food available or perhaps a runway of a certain length. All of this and more can be done within Voyager's autorouter. When you get to the New Flight Plan Wizard step where you select your routing method and parameters, you'll see a button next to the Add fuel checkbox that says Options. Click it and you can choose your fuel stop frequency, required airport/airspace class, minimum runway length, or even types of approaches. |
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Quick Routing with Victors. While Voyager's New Flight Plan Wizard is extremely powerful, once setup with your personal parameters, you can easily bypass it to plan your flight faster. In the Tasks window, select the Plan tab then choose the second option (Create a flight plan without the wizard) then, in the text entry space, enter the idents of your takeoff and landing airports. For example, to fly from Seattle to San Francisco, enter SEA SFO (no need to enter the K since Voyager will assume you're taking off from the airport not the navaid). Not only that, you can enter the airway or even SID/STAR you prefer on the same line. For example, SEA V495 V23 V87 SFO. Best of all, even when entered like this, Voyager will still wind-optimize and find you the best-priced fuel stops. For more info, see click the Help button within Voyager when you're on this tab in the Tasks window. |
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Weather Timeline and Altitude Slider. Weather analysis is one of Voyager's best features. With any chart on the screen (even a scanned FAA chart), you can overlay weather (Weather button, Overlay All Weather on the Chart). Better still, you can see how the weather is expected to change over time and/or at different altitudes. If a flight plan is on the screen, you'll see a timeline under the chart with green and white areas. The green areas are times that you'll be in the air and the white while on the ground. If you grab and move the little pointer on the timeline, you'll see the METAR/TAF and Winds Aloft predictions for future times. Not only that, but if you wonder why Voyager selected a certain flight altitude or you're just curious about the winds, there is an altitude slider to the left of the Chart (below the Toolbox with the different chart layers). As with the timeline, just slide the pointer and see how things change at different altitudes. |
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Fuel vs. Payload Calculator. We all know that there's generally a tradeoff between how much fuel you can put in your plane and how many people or how much luggage you can carry. Rather than eyeball it or do a "try this and see if it works" repetitive procedure, why not just let Voyager show you the exact tradeoff? When you're in the New Flight Plan Wizard, click the button to enter either your desired fuel or payload amount and the system calculates the other. You can also do this outside of the wizard by selecting Fuel vs. Payload Calculator from the Tools menu at any time. |
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Check Your ChartData Expiration Date. If you're not sure when your ChartData subscription expires, it's easy to check. Select About Voyager from the Help menu then click the text link that says ChartData expiration date. |
Upcoming Events
Seattle Avionics Software will be showing Voyager and the SkyPad at the following upcoming events. Stop by to say hello, see the latest Voyager features, play with a SkyPad, or ask the experts any questions.
February 20 - 21, 2010. Northwest Aviation Conference. Puyallup, WA.
April 13 - 18, 2010. Sun n' Fun. Lakeland, FL.
July 26 - August 1, 2010. EAA Airventure. Oshkosh, WI.
Until next time, happy flying.
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| 19825 141st Place NE
Woodinville, Washington 98072
425.806.0249 | |
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