ForeFlight, creator of the widely used ForeFlight Mobile Integrated Flight App, now gives pilots and aircraft operators a unique, interactive, and global airport familiarization tool with Airport 3D View.

Leveraging ForeFlight’s leading mapping and synthetic vision platform, the Airport 3D View feature combines stunning global aerial imagery with Jeppesen-sourced high-resolution terrain to create a realistic and interactive simulation of the airport environment.

“Airport 3D View is a powerful new tool that helps ForeFlight customers familiarize themselves with airport surroundings and explore new places to fly,” says Tyson Weihs, co-founder and CEO of ForeFlight. Weihs added: “In the past, aircraft operators used static pictures of airport environments to get familiar with an airport area. Airport 3D View changes the paradigm and delivers an immersive, next-generation familiarization capability that works world-wide and will help customers more efficiently prepare for flights and ultimately improve safety.”

From within the ForeFlight app, users can pan and zoom 360-degrees around any airport to see a photorealistic 3D representation of the airport and the surrounding terrain. The “camera” view tilts from a 3-degree approach path all the way to a top-down view so users can easily preview the airport or approach path from any angle.

At the top of the 3D View, a data readout contains information about the camera’s current position, including its altitude, distance from the pivot point (airport center or runway ends), and inclination in degrees, along with the airport and touchdown zone elevations.

Buttons for each runway allow users to quickly reposition the camera to one nautical mile from the end of the selected runway, with an inclination that places it on the published glideslope, or at a 6-degree approach path angle if no glideslope information is available. Users can then zoom in and out without rotating the camera to get a view of the runway and airport environment from any point along the glideslope.

Airport 3D View is also available inflight when customers use the Pack feature during planning on the ground. Pack makes it easy to download all of the current charts, data, weather, fuel prices, and NOTAMs for a flight, and now includes 3D Views for any airport in the planned route string.