Airmate vs Altimeter for Aviators

Airmate is a free and easy to use flight planning and weather app for pilots, improving situational awareness and providing instant access to airport data and aviation maps, up to date weather and NOTAMs, traffic around. IFR and VFR airport plates are freely available in US (FAA charts), Europe, and more than 200 other countries. Many of them are georeferenced and could be overlaid on the aviation chart. A powerful Plate Manager allows to download in advance all airport plates in a country, they could be easily printed and viewed. During the flight, the moving map will display the aircraft location along the route, show airports and aeronautical data details and traffic around, warn you if your planned route is crossing restricted areas. A profile view is available to display terrain elevation, crossed areas and forecasted weather across the route. Airmate can also display a backup aircraft attitude indicator and flight parameters in an EFIS-like view. In the whole world, Synthetic Vision displaying in the EFIS-like view the ups and downs of rolling terrain ahead is available. In selected countries, Airmate can display scenery if this option is purchased. Airmate includes a worldwide aeronautical database updated free of charge with airports, navigation beacons, waypoints, airways, obstacles, regulated and restricted areas. Topographic maps and elevation data for most countries may be downloaded free of charge, as well as additional aviation map overlays such US Sectionals. A procedure database provide details of departure (SID), arrival (STAR) and instrument approaches in the USA, and you could add those procedures to your planned flight route (the procedure database includes all US airports, we are workding to add airports in other countries). Once loaded, the procedure path is displayed on the aeronautical map, including curved paths and racetracks. When coupled with a supported external ADS-B received, Airmate will display nearby traffic on the moving map, and receive FIS-B weather and NOTAM during the flight. To improve safety, Airmate can display neighbouring traffic received over mobile network. Such traffic include commercial airlines and transponder-equiped aircrafts, FLARM gliders, aircrafts whose pilots are using Airmate and other users using other safety broadcasting equipment. Airmate is able to transmit the flight plan data to supported avionics such Dynon SkyView. Thanks to the Auto Route feature, you could search and select the best route for your flight, and then file your VFR or IFR flight plan. Once filed, your flight plan could easily be managed, delayed or cancelled. Airmate will also record your flights and allow to replay them later or export the flight path in gpx format, you could take pictures from the app during flights. Pilot log entries are automatically computed from flown flights. A Satellite map display mode in flight planning or replay mode allows to familiarize with significant landmarks. Airmate will save planned and flown flights, user waypoints and user aircrafts in the cloud and sync them between your devices and Airmate web flight planning. Airmate brings numerous social features to the community. Pilots may leave ratings, tips and comments to share their experience with fellow pilots, and report fuel prices and landing fees. They could find friends, instructors, flight schools, aviation events and aircraft to rent near their home airport or any visited airport. Airmate may be connected to most flight simulators to keep flying skills sharp, and will manage also AHRS and simulated traffic data transmitted by the flight simulator. Planned flights and personal waypoints may be imported and exported. Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

If you want a 'real' Altimeter, look no further. No GPS used here. Learn how a real pressure Altimeter works such as you would find in an aircraft. Altimeter for Aviators is primarily designed as an Apple Watch application, although it does also work on iPhones or iPads that have a barometer. Provided your watch has a Barometer it will even run stand-alone (no iPhone needed). Student and instructor pilots will find this App to be a valuable training tool, while those knowing how to use an altimeter will enjoy having it on their wrist. To obtain your Altitude (height above sea level): Set the 'pressure setting' to the current air pressure at sea level. Weather forecasts often give this (eg the BBC Weather App includes pressure in mb). You can also obtain the pressure from weather pressure charts or from METAR reports from airports (eg Q1017). In aviation speak, this is known as the QNH. Set the pressure setting by rotating the 'crown' on your watch. You can then 'Lock' this setting so you don't accidentally change it by doing a long-press and choosing 'Lock'. Alternatively, if you know the altitude of the point that you are currently at, you can rotate the watch crown until the Altimeter reads the correct altitude. To obtain your height above a certain location: Set the 'station' pressure for that location (the actual air pressure at that very point). Aviation language calls this pressure setting QFE. If you are at that location, you can just rotate the crown of the watch until the Altimeter reads zero. As a short-cut you can alternatively long-press and then pick "Zero (QFE)". To obtain your Flight Level (FL): Another setting that pilots use is the standard setting of 1013.25mb. This is used above 3000ft roughly and instead of giving you an accurate 'Altitude' gives you what is known as a 'Flight level'. Long-press and select the "STP (FL)" option as a short cut (FL stands for Flight Level. STP stands for 'Standard Temperature and Pressure'). If you are more familiar with inches of mercury (inHg) rather than hectapascals (hPa) or millibars (mb) then toggle this with the 'Units' menu item. Note that mb and hPa are the same unit. ACCURACY WARNING: Your watch (or iPhone) pressure sensing device has not been calibrated in the same way that the expensive altimeters found in aircraft have been. Your electronic device also has more points of failure and error being miniature and electrically based so this App in no way replaces or can be used for actual flying. If you run this App side by side on two different iOS devices, the chances are they'll give you slightly different altitudes. Further, if you're a pilot the pressure in your cockpit is unlikely to be as accurate as the location of the static pitot tube and will be susceptible to changes due to air vents being opened, doors with gaps, any climate control, your speed and any vibration. WEATHER WARNING: Air pressure changes throughout the day can cause readings to drift by up to 1 foot per minute, so keep the pressure-setting up-to-date by updating it whenever you can; as you get to any locations of known altitude or hourly if receiving pressure settings in some other way. Colours: Altimeter for Aviators shows how recent the altitude was calculated (it's not constant) White = updated in the last 10 seconds Yellow = updated between 10 and 60 seconds ago. Pink = updated between 1 and 10 minutes ago. Dark Red = updated more than 10 minutes ago. Altitude units: The long hand shows 100s of feet. The short hand 1000s of feet. The inward pointing edge arrow shows 10000s of feet. The barber pole (stripe at the bottom) is visible below 10000 feet, so if it disappears you are at risk of Hypoxia.