I went with GP for the same reasons. However, the topo shading lacks the detail I wanted. I have bought the topo disk for my 660 which is fine but it would be nice use maps that CalTopo can generate on the ipad as an overlay given the ipads size and resolution. The detail of these Geospatial PDF's are quite amazing compared to the pilots terrain shading. The pictures I posted aren't doing it justice.
Part of the purpose of this thread was also to give a thumbs up for CalTopo. The mapping capabilities of CalTopo is worth a try for any pilot especially if backcountry skiing is in the mix.
View attachment 45131
This is photo shows slope angle shading as an overlay on a USGS topo map. To have this combination available in the GP app would be quite meaningful. Another feature in CalTopo that I'm finding useful is the ease at which you can create a detailed route through terrain and export it to a Garmin device. It does a better and cleaner job than the two mapping products (InReach Maps, Basecamp) that Garmin provides.
Jerry[/QUOTE
Hallo Jerry,
taking your Rainy Pass picture as a trigger (flying through there with more detailed info definetely helps...and I used the same picture) here is what I did to get geo information as detailed as possible over and above what is offered commercially...
So far I used Foreflight and the Alaska Gazetteer as navigation base for cross country and off airport in Alaska.
What I have come up with is basically cutting Alaska into 5 regions and building my own "electronic-region-map" by using Excel and the topo maps of the 50ies to the 80ies of the government which are 1:250.000 up to the last corner in AK and which show very good detail as compared to Alaska Gazetteer. These maps "cut together" in excel get supplemented by caltopo, sattelite pictures,Google Earth Screen Shots and real fotos of the location and all sorts of sources and downsized to thumbnails which I can resize if needed - in offline modus. With the additional bonus of using the other Excel tables and add cabin infos, glacier maps, tide schedules etc.
So Foreflight I use for navigation and excel "region-map" down to the last detail of my interest such as Icy Bay landing spots for example - see attachment - with guyot glacier landing spot in expanded mode...
An integration or overlap with foreflight would be nice but I am not sure worth the effort - as I typically do not need the GPS dot once on that level of detail...
The I-Pad then "only" needs to cope with the 500MB of one of those region-maps...
Curious about what you guys think about it
Best regards
Axel