Story ID: 
ForeFlight Releases Flight Planning Improvements
By: Matt Thurber
Caption: Enhanced flight drawer and graphical weight and balance cabin layout are among the changes
Word Count: 323
ForeFlight has made its flight plan drawer more useful with a resizing capability and added a graphical cabin layout to weight and balance planning, as well as other improvements.
The new flight plan drawer has a touch control at the bottom that allows the user to resize the drawer vertically. This provides much more space for complex flight plan creation. Resizing is also available in the navlog and profile sections, expanding the amount of information that can be viewed. This makes viewing a lengthy navlog simpler with no scrolling required.
In the profile view, two new overlays are available: headwind/tailwind and estimated groundspeed. These are depicted in the profile view so the pilot can instantly see the forecast wind at various altitudes or the resulting groundspeed for the planned direction of flight. This feature is available for Performance Plus subscribers.
Setting up of the new weight and balance graphical cabin layout must be done on the ForeFlight web access site and is available for ForeFlight Performance and up subscribers. Selecting an aircraft provides access to the weight and balance profile name, where there is a link to edit that profile.
After clicking on the edit link, a “get started” button pops up, asking whether the user wants to “display your interior during loading.” The orientation of seats is adjustable, but changing from forward- to rear-facing doesn’t affect the weight and balance calculation. Once completed, the new cabin layout is available by clicking the weight and balance tab in the flights section.
Other added features include VFR chart add-ons for Northern Africa and the Northern Middle East from Rogers Data, and Japan from Airman’s Information Service. Hazard altitude options are now available in the map settings hazards section, with new 100- and 500-foot options. ForeFlight has also added runway analysis support for the Cessna Citation 550B/Bravo and 560/V.