Gary, the blogger behind Gary’s Flight Journal, has recently written a post where he calculated the costs of a paper cockpit verses a paperless cockpit. For his example, he included everything east of the Mississippi River and came up with the following costs:
PAPER = $846.00
3 AFD’s @ $5.00 each, every 56 days, say six orders – $90
12 IAP’s @ $6.00 each, every 56 days, say six orders – $432
10 ENR’s @ $3.00 each, every 56 days, say six orders – $180
12 VFR @ $6.00 each, semi annual – $144PAPERLESS = $149.99 w/iPad $800.00
ForeFlight HD (1 Year)
Moving map, weather, plates, charts, AF/D, and filing. $74.99
ForeFlight Pro (1 Year)
Adds geo-referenced instrument procedures and diagrams $149.99
* Lets figure in the cost of an iPad with Wifi-3G, 32GB $650
**The cost of foreflight includes the ability for radar, satellite, IFR enroute (high or low), VFR sectional, fuel prices, flight rules, winds, temperatures, dew point spreads, ceilings, sky coverage, lightning, and more for the entire US.
In this particular example, the cost of having a paperless cockpit were lower than the costs of having a paper filled cockpit. Moreover, Gary noted that the costs for subsequent years will fall as a pilot would only need to subscribe to foreflight at $75 basic and $150 geo-referenced a year.
Hence, we want to ask our UK and European readers to see if anyone has calculated the costs of a paper cockpit verses a paperless cockpit for the UK or continental Europe. If so, what figures did you come up with?