I was searching the forum for an answer on this, but I'll go ahead and ask......

Do the regionals supply the necessary Jeppesen plates for your trips, or are you expected to pick up the tab?

Also, which approach plates do you typically get? Low, High, or both enroutes?

EDIT: If the regional supplies your Jeppesen plates, do they only supply the area you're flying in, or the entire 48 coniguous states?

Thanks.

 

I'd be willing to say every airline supplies you with the appropriate plates that you need. You should be provided with both high and low enroute charts for the areas that you need. Just got my plates and charts the other day, you'll probably need to buy your own binders for them though.

 

What really blows is that Jeppesen seems to have made a change in their offerings since I last purchased charts from them and they no longer offer just MN, WI, and IA (low) for $169. They seemed to have increased the areas covered, but the price has obviously also gone up to compensate.

 

In the past some regionals have required you to purchase your own plates. It was an added expense like purchasing your uniforms that they would deduct from your checks. I can't imagine anyone giving you the entire 48 contiguous states. Republic does their best since I can barely fit mine in there but they still aren't close. However some places do carry a set of plates for all airports with runways long enough for that particular jet to land on. I think express has a bag in the plane for that but I'll let someone else chime in.

 

If you are wanting plates to fly with on your own then just use www.airnav.com or purchase the actual booklets for the state or group of states. I think they are like $6 a piece and for private flying they have pretty much all the same info.

 

Yeah, I assume you're talking about NOS plates...they're okay. I've always preferred the Jepps over NOS.

If I was desperate on going somewhere quick (locally), I'd definitely use NOS.

I think when I was doing my instrument (and later on my CFII), I was one of about 20 guys who invested in Jepp charts. It's just personal preferrence once you get used to Jepps.

 

I know where you're coming from. I prefer jepps too but as a CFII they simply cost too much if you are traveling several areas.

 

Airlines (majors and regionals) provide Jepps to their pilots (there may be a very few exceptions at the 135/commuter level).

However...the charts you get are NOT the standard Jepp packs you buys at the FBO. The issue you will get is customized:

- Covers only the airline's geographic operating area.

- Customized with non-standard minimums (or entire approaches) that apply only to that airline.

- Usually specific to the aircraft: jet pilots get a lot of Jepps, turboprops (which operate in a small geographic area) may get only a handful.

- You package will cover the geographic area your aircraft serves, including destinations, approved alternates, and possible emergency divert fields.

- Airports with runways too small for your aircraft will be excluded...this means that you can't really use your airline jepps for recreational flying (unless you own a G-V).


Om occasion I have had to ferry an aircraft (for Mx or paint) and found that I was not issued approach plates for the destination (it wasn't in the revenue service footprint)...good thing to check BEFORE you blast off.

 

No airline carrys around the entire 48 states. (For one thing they aren't authorized to operate into all of those airports!). Of course the other obvious reason is that you'd need 3 flight bags.

We have the USA High Performance Charts on our aircraft (All airports in the 48 contiguous states with 4000' runways or longer). It's a whopping 11 binders worth of stuff.

 

At Comair we are issued only the airports that we fly into. (Scheduled destinations plus maintenance bases.) When we do a charter, we are given a charter packet that includes jepps for any offline airports. We also have a "brick" packet that stays in each airplane that includes offline alternate airports. This really cuts down on the number of plates that we carry.

The only thing we are required to purchase are the jepp binders if you buy them from the company. Of course, you can always bring your own.