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Originally Posted by Matt13C  WHich free and commercial products do you, or anyone else, recommend? I do mine by hand/calculator, which is not that hard or time consuming and I actually enjoy it. But I am sure there will come a day when I just want it done and don't feel like doing each step. |
What stage are you at right now? If you are a student pilot, it's nice to know about the online tools that plan you flight almost automatically, but you need to learn how to do it manually - just so you know how.
As mentioned, both DUAT providers (
www.duat.com and
www.duats.com) will calculate flight plans. If you're an AOPA member, the Jepp-produced flight planner adds visuals, but has the drawback of requiring you to download a component - nice if you travel with a laptop; not as nice if you have to plan a new route after diverting to a different airport for weather.
www.fltplan.com is very popular with the corporate and 135 crowd. On the pay side,
www.aeroplanner.com is a popular and effective tool.
On the software end, Seattle Avionics' Voyager,
http://www.seattleavionics.com/default.aspx, has become very popular (there are free and pay flavors), although you may find it very slow to load, it's so loaded with stuff. One of the DUAT providers also has software available in both free and pay versions,
http://www.duats.com/cirrus.shtml.
That's only a small selection of the stuff that's available out there.