What is UltraNav?

As most pilots know, flight planning can be somewhat of a chore. It is all too easy to measure a bearing or distance inaccurately or get a nonsensical result through simple arithmetic error. Even worse, if you're trying to evaluate alternative routes, working out all the numbers over and over for different winds or altitudes can be real drudgery. To help out, there are several personal computer programs available in Australia to assist in drafting plans. UltraNav is an inexpensive program designed for the average GA VFR pilot or ultralight pilot, without the frills that commercial IFR operators require.  The interface has been deliberately kept simple and familiar, and UltraNav works on pretty much all versions of Window, from Win 3.1 to NT. 

UltraNav offers the ability to select waypoints from a list that includes the Australian En-Route Supplement of licensed, unlicensed airports and navigation aids. You can also add an unlimited number of your own waypoints to the databases. 

For registered users, UltraNav includes a comprehensive database of 40,000 towns and surface features for the whole of Australia!

UltraNav allows definition of multiple aircraft and their performance characteristics to be used in the plan in a simple and straightforward manner. 

Building a flight plan in UltraNav is a matter of just a few mouse clicks to select waypoints, land, refuel, set winds and so on. For registered users, the plan can be printed in  Flight Notification format, suitable for direct submission to ATS manually or by fax. The plan can also be printed with additional spacing to allow use as an in-flight worksheet, complete with airport information and frequencies. 

UltraNav provides an intuitive, simple interface similar to the popular word processing and spreadsheet programs most users will be familiar with. In addition, it includes: 

• Optional compensation for density altitude in TAS calculations
• Saves plans to be called up later, with or without wind and landing information.
• Display of the route on a map of Australia, along with alternative waypoints
• Display of your route via Google Earth^tm  if installed.
  
• Copies the plan to the Windows clipboard to be inserted in other documents
• Optionally include "Top of climb" waypoints and times.
• Calculates first and last light at any point at any date, and supports SAR section of flight plan.
• Supports multiple aircraft types and aircraft of that type, as well as up to 100 pilots.
• Supports graphical weight and balance (Bravo system only)
• For Registered users, the ERSA database of airfields, plus a database of Australian towns and features to be used as waypoints. (40,000 entries!)..
• For registered users, Imports and exports files in Waypoint+ and OzeExplorer format - with appropriate GPS software, you can download your plans to a GPS or upload GPS waypoints for use in later plans!
• Includes a comprehensive users manual, including a "Fast Start" tutorial.
• Fixes and database updates can be downloaded directly from our Web site at No Charge.

UltraNav is designed to run on any IBM compatible PC with Windows 3.0 or above. (includes Win95, OS/2 with WINOS2 and Windows NT) 

What's the difference between UltraNav and other Flight Planners?
OK, UltraNav is cheap, and you get what you pay for.  It's not designed for commercial IFR use, just for the average person who needs a simple tool to plan the occasional flight.  Most of the other flight planners cost from $80 upwards to about $350, and in most cases, offer annual update services for an additional fee.  If you just need a flight planner for ultralight use or for "weekend warrior" GA flying, this is a pretty expensive option! 

Other flight planners say they produce "AIR SERVICES APPROVED" plans. You don't.  What's the deal?
According to Air Services, they haven't actually "approved" any of these programs. Although it's a bit misleading, what these companies probably mean is that they produce a facsimile of the Air Services official plan documents that are accepted by Air Services.  Well, we produce a similar facsimile, and have submitted sample plans produced by UltraNav to Air Services for checking for compliance with standards, which they did.  However, Air Services have no official stamp they can give for blanket approval of plans from UltraNav. 

Other Flight planners have update services - do you?
UltraNav is updated occasionally, depending on need and customer requirements. Program updates are free for download by all users.  We deliberately did not put a requirement for airspace information into the program, as this would mandate lots of updates.  We recommend that you always use the current air charts, ERSA and NOTAMs as the final reference when planning flights, and this includes flight planned using planning programs other than UltraNav.  We will not take legal responsibility for assuring that you fly legally and safely!!!! 

What about NAIPS plans?
We may add the capability to produce a NAIPS compatible file in a future update release. 
 

Usage tips
Please note, of course that full instructions are available in the manual if you register, and that without it, your use of UltraNav will be a voyage of discovery!

These are the steps you need to go through after installation: 

• Run "UltraNav Setup" from the created program group.
• Select "Pilots" and enter your details - and select your entry as the default pilot.
• Select "Aircraft Types" and check if your type is available in the drop down list. If so, make sure the performance information is correct and if not, modify it. If it isn't there, add it.
• Select "Aircraft" and enter the registration of your aircraft, and select it from the list of types (it should now be present), and select the equipment installed.
• Select "Preferences" and select your aircraft from the drop-down list as the default for the plans
• Close the setup program
• Start UltraNav
• The program starts and loads the ERSA database. You can immediately search for and add waypoints from the ERSA by typing the identifier or searching on the name. So add all the waypoints that you need from ERSA...
• Press "cancel" and you will see the basic plan... laid out as a spreadsheet-like grid.
• You can interact with any leg in several different ways, depending on preference.
• 
  Menus and Mouses!

  By clicking once with the left mouse button, you select a waypoint. The program will them make visible the toolbar options for the leg to that waypoint. Instead of using the toolbar, you can also use the RIGHT mouse button to bring up a menu of available options for the leg. Or, you can Double-click on the item you want to change (eg, wind speed) to bring up the data entry panel for that item... the choice is yours! 

  NEW FEATURES
  Version 2.1 adds basic support for the current Flight Notification form, supports import and export of data from the WAYPOINT+ shareware program used for Garmin GPS waypoint/route upload and download, and also imports and exports OziExplorer WPT files (NEW)
  Current build level: 001010 On the Right Hand Bottom of the "About" panel)

  New Flight Plan form

  This version supports printing of both the front (Flight Notification) and back (Route/Fuel) of the most recent Air Services form. 
  In this build you may now create waypoints with identifiers starting with "Y". The program now knows which identifiers are valid ones for ERSA waypoints, and will treat all others as user waypoints when printing the plan (ie: it will print latitude/longitude pairs).  This lifts the restriction in the earlier beta.

  Waypoint+ support

  Waypoint+ is a very useful and cheap (shareware) program for uploading and downloading Garmin GPS data to and from your PC. You can get it here. You can also get a cheap PC-connection cable (the Garmin one is expensive) here, courtesy of the Pfranc Pfolks. 

  UltraNav allows you to upload your current plan as a Route for use in Waypoint+ and your Garmin. Remember to choose a Route Number that's not in use in your GPS, or it will get overwritten when you do the upload. 

  In the other direction, Routes from your GPS can become UltraNav plans, and waypoint lists can be added to your current UltraNav waypoint database. UltraNav automatically calculates  the magnetic deviation when loading the points into UltraNav (for waypoints in Australia only !!!!!) 

  When uploading waypoints and routes from your Garmin, assure that you save them as comma-delimited TXT files from Waypoint+. 
  

  OziExplorer support

  OziExplorer is a shareware program that supports upload and download from a number of GPS's. You can get it here.

  Currently, UltraNav allows you to save your current plan as a WPT file for input into OziExplorer, or to take an OziExplorer WPT file and add all the waypoints in it into your currently open waypoint database.

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