STEP 1:Get the Plates

Head over to PDFplates.com and check it all out. You don’t need to create an account or anything and amazingly you don’t have to pull out your wallet!

(although they do graciously accept donations and I guarantee you will want to reward these folks!)


Find the latest set of plates:

At the time of this writing it is the 0908 set.

This is the Page where the magic is!

Each link is tied to a single, multi-page PDF file that includes the entire plates for the region or state. Download only the regions or states that you need or if you’re like my friend Greg - you’ll need them all. ;-)


tip: on a mac - hold down the option key while  you click and the file will be directly downloaded to your downloads folder or wherever you have set up as your default location for downloads.


That’s it for PDFplates! Painless and free.

STEP 2: Get the iPhone App

I’m assuming you’ve got your iPhone and know your way around iTunes and downloading apps.


Go to Goodiware’s website and read up on their GoodReader app or download it direct from iTunes here.


Why THIS PDF viewer and not one of the other ones?? 3 reasons:

  1. 1)GoodReader handles the giant multipage PDFs created by PDFPlates.com easily where others do not. GoodReader is less likely to crash and will allow you to move from one set of plates to another quickly.

  2. 2)GoodReader has multiple built in ways to get the PDFplates onto your phone.

  3. 3)GoodReader has a way to make bookmarks for files and to go directly to a particular page in a multiple page PDF file.


GoodReader is VERY powerful application and you will need to read their online tutorials to get the most out of it. I am going to try and give you a condensed how to on getting the PDF plates you just downloaded onto your iPhone where you can then view them in Good Reader.

STEP 3: Files onto iPhone

Theoretically there are 3 ways (!) to do this. USB transfer, WiFi transfer and direct download.


USB

As far as I know GoodReader
is the only PDFreader for the iPhone that has a system to get files to your phone with a USB cable. While using USB is the fastest way to transfer files it is also the most technically challenging (but very doable). Another piece of free software (PC and Mac versions) is required called iPhone Explorer.

Goodiware has a wonderful tutorial on using iPhone explorer and USB.


Direct download from website

Good reader has the capability to
download the PDF files directly from the PDFPlates website!! - in theory. I was not able to get this to work myself but it could be my own connection issues. I suggest you try it for yourself. If you are able to make this work for you the advantage is clear -
NO COMPUTER REQUIRED! You can look up PDFPlates website using GoodReader’s built in web browser or in Safari you can add a “g” to the address of the file you want to download so that it will start up GoodReader and download the file!! Remember this will be slow and unless the state you need to download is Rhode Island I’d suggested not trying to do this over your 3G connection!



WiFi

So that leaves us with getting your files onto your computer using WiFi. Use any local WiFi-network to transfer files from your desktop computer to
GoodReader. For security reasons and to save your battery power, transfer is allowed only when you're on the WiFi-transfer page. You can open this page with this button on the main screen of GoodReader:



You have two transferring options - "easy" and "professional".

"Easy" transfer:

Transfer using web-browsers. Minimum setup effort, but it is very very slow on large files, so it should only be used if you don’t have not too many files

Transfer using web-browsers (any operating system)


"Professional" transfer

This technique connects your iPhone to your desktop computer as a network folder. Hard to set up, but it is fast, so you can use it on large files. The transfer procedure depends on the type of your desktop computer's operating system.

Note: Some public WiFi networks such as at hotels, restaurants and airports will not support this method because of their network security. The Easy transfer method is more likely to work in this situation.



•So I will walk you through the “Pro”  transfer setup for mac. Tutorials for all operating systems are available on Goodiware’s site.

This technique connects your iPhone to your desktop computer as a network folder.

Connecting your iPhone to Mac OS X:


•Connect both your iPhone and desktop computer to the same WiFi-network

start GoodReader, open the
WiFi-transfer page

On the lower left corner of the GoodReader toolbar on the iPhone.


(keep it open all the time), note the IP-address or the Bonjour-address there.











•On a Mac computer go to Finder application, open the Go menu and select Connect to Server

enter the IP-address or Bonjour-address from the WiFi-transfer page and press Connect.


•The network folder will open

use the newly opened network folder to transfer your files.


I make a folder named Approach Plates to put them all in.




•When you're done with file transfer,
press the eject button nearby your iPhone's address at the sidebar of any Finder's window, wait until the eject button disappears, then close the WiFi-transfer page




STEP 4: Finding an Airport’s Plates

Here’s the simple biggest reason why GoodReader and PDFPlates shine together.


The first page of every PDF file created by the folks at PDFPlates.com has an index where they have associated an airport with its corresponding page number. The FAA didn’t do this for us!






•Tap on the middle of the screen in GoodReader to bring up the navigation buttons and then tap the magnifying glass and tap “GoTo Page”.








•Type in the page number you need and tap “Go”.











BAM! your at the first page of charts for you selected airport!

Rotate the screen for a bigger view or pinch to zoom.





Well, That oughta get you going. Remember that Goodiware’s website has tutorials for all the features in GoodReader. I guarantee that you will only be more impressed by this setup as you use it more.

Thanks to Goodiware and PDFPlates.com for providing two great tools moving us ever forward to that IFR flying nirvana that includes free, portable approach plates.



Enjoy!

-Rusty