iFly GPS Forum

As a brand new (1 week old) Instrument pilot I'm curious how other IFR pilots use iFly in the real world. Specifically:

1: Is there a way to submit more than one IFR flight plan using iFly before leaving on a trip with multiple stops? Once I submit File Online it prevents another plan from being filed unless the first is cancelled. It doesn't specificy whether this is a "local" cancellation or cancels it with Flight Service so I've been hesitant to try it.

2: Is there a way to get a preliminary iFly Online Briefing for a multi-leg trip? The Flight Plan screen says "Cannot File Multi-leg Flight Plan" when clicking on the Online Filing button. I tried removing the intermediate landings (leaving them simply as waypoints) but then the briefing only seems to show the initial departure and the final destination information.

3: Does iFly provide any type of email or text notification that the briefing has been accepted by Flight Service? Any notification options for changes to flight plan, reminders to close, etc? If not, is there a way to file through iFly but have another service provide those notifications?

Any other helpful things to know about using iFLY in my new IFR world? Any other useful tools that you use to supplement iFly?

I am typically on a Windows machine using multiple resources (and often still a phone call to 1-800-WX-BRIEF for CYA on TFRs, especially on the rare occasion I fly VFR) to plan an IFR flight, and I developed my planning/filing habits before iFly had the capability to file, so I do not use iFly for filing. 

After doing my preflight planning using my variety of tools, I use FltPlan.com to file.  I just flew a multi-leg trip this weekend, and filed the plans for all legs in advance.  I have my (free) FltPlan.com account set up to send me texts and emails with alerts when plans are filed, and those alerts include an expected clearance, which in my experience matches the clearence I pick up about 80-90% of the time.

I also still like to print out the FltPlan.com nav log and put it on my kneeboard.  Not really necessary with all the electronic redundancy and independence between devices in my cockpit, but it has useful info that's always available at a glance, and also some blank space to scribble in to capture clearances, ATIS reports, etc.  I may one day use iFly's scratch pad feature for that instead, but my current tablet doesn't record my scribbles very well, so I'm still using old-timey paper today.

Congrats on your IFR ticket!

I just did a bit more digging on the 1800wxbrief.com website and see a possible answer to "3. Does iFly provide any type of email or text notification that the briefing has been accepted by Flight Service? Any notification options for changes to flight plan, reminders to close, etc? If not, is there a way to file through iFly but have another service provide those notifications?" I'll submit this in the iFly Wish-List section of the forum.

"When I file my flight plan with one of your partners, why don’t I see the flight on my Pilot Dashboard page?

Some partners submit flight plans without associating them with a Pilot website account. These flight plans are successfully filed and are available to our specialists. To obtain support for one of these flight plans please call a specialist. You may check with your service provider to see if they plan to add support for filing flight plans associated with website accounts in the future."