Josh Tahmasebi is not a man under illusions that his job is going to be easy.
This laconic American is charged with embedding the ForeFlight EFB in the Australian market, a market that already has two indigenous EFB programs that enjoy fiercely loyal customer bases.
But ForeFlight is largest EFB in the world in terms of users, and with its CASA and Airservices approvals now in the bag, the Boeing-owned company now wants Australian customers to come on board,
When Australian Flying met Tahmasebi at the Australian International Airshow this week, he was confident the product would speak for itself.
"ForeFlight has been around for over 16 years now," he said. "The whole idea is to make flying safer throughout the world. The big thing we try to strive for is a single application so that you can do everything with one application: pre-flight planning, plan filing, briefing, go and fly with it and then do all your logging with it at the end, as well as track log analysis so you can see what you did during the flight."
ForeFlight was created in 2007, and was the first aviation app available through App Store, and was also the most expensive app of any type on App Store. It has grown to hold a dominant position the the USA, which does make you wonder why they would bother with a small market that is already saturated with three functioning EFBs: AvPlan, Garmin Pilot and OzRunways.
"No matter how big or small a market is, our goal is still to make flying safer," Tahmasebi said, brushing off the concerns. "We’re in the US, Canada and Europe already; Australia was the next big move for us, particularly for the APAC region and supporting general aviation pilots. We also support military and business aviation; we’ve got a fairly big draw there.
"We’re absolutely aware that we’re not the native application; that’s perfectly fine. But, we do have a lot of connections with different providers that make us strong. We have a great suite of connectivity: all the Garmin avionics, Avidyne, Dynon. We also make our own portable system as well that will help detect carbon monoxide in the cockpit. That has actually saved lives in the US.
"We’re just coming into Australia to help support everyone we can."
Business experience shows that being a "me too" product has at best a mediocre chance of getting customers to swap from one successful product to a relatively unknown, but Tahmasebi believes that ForeFlight has the advantages to pull it off.
"One of the big reasons we’re here in Australia is because of the Jeppeson IFR charts'" he pointed out. "We have Jeppeson charts that are available to purchase through ForeFlight, and those customers that were flying IFR using separate applications can now do both VFR and IFR within ForeFlight.
"We still have the things that people are used to such as charts and procedure information, but we try to make things easier when you flight plan. For example, when you plan for your flight and you want to choose a procedure, you choose from a list. We’re trying to put more things right at your fingertips."
Having been developed and approved in the USA, Canada and Europe, the ForeFlight teamed turned their attention towards Australia, but found dealing with CASA and Airservices was a very different experience to what they were used to. That they pressed on demonstrates a commitment to the Australian market.
"Getting the approval for Australia was definitely different for us," he says with a wry smile and knowing nod. "We haven’t had to go through that sort of process with the FAA, Nav Canada or even EASA.
"It was different for sure, but everyone was super-friendly along the way, offering suggestions and answering questions, but it definitely took us longer as it is very specific. Lots of documentation had to be created.
"But its been smooth, and we’ve been testing with Australian pilots here and so far they’ve been very happy with it."
According to Tahmasebi, the US and Australian ways of doing things haven't been dissimilar enough to warrant large changes to the way ForeFlight works, although they are still adapting the product to account for variances.
"The changes to ForeFlight for Australia so far have been minimal," he said. "We have some more pieces coming, TAFs for instance. When it comes to the Remarks section, it’s very Australian. The way it talks about turbulence, altimeter information and temperature in a TAF is not the same as it is in the US or other places around the world.
"We show them encoded at the moment, but we’re planning on decoding them for the future. The decode works for most of the TAF at the moment, just not those parts."
Keen to start showing the product around, Tahmasebi believes that Australian pilots will find plenty to like about ForeFlight, enough, perhaps to lure them away from the established EFBs in this market.
"We have all the information right there on the screen like you have with other apps, but we have some pieces that will help get information quicker," he said. "If you want to get information about a frequency you can just push on the airspace and get the frequency, and you can also see what other places are near where you’ve pushed.
"If you want to add one to your route you just tap on it. There’s nothing special that you have to do, we don’t hide functionality in any way, we don’t require you to go to different screens to get information. We’re trying to make everything right at your fingertips, because the important part for you is flying the plane.
"We are also going to have an alerting systems for when you fly around heavy terrain, with synthetic vision to show you what the terrain is going to look like and hazard alert warnings so if you’re getting close to terrain, ForeFlight will alert you and show you where the terrain is on the map.
"And when you’re done, you can go in and log the flight in the logbook section; we also have a track log so you can go back and review what that flight looked like, including in 3D."
Australians are known for being particularly parochial and doggedly loyal to their home-grown. Ford vs Holden, AFL vs rugby, NSW vs QLD, AvPlan vs OzRunways. Breaking the bonds of traditional loyalty are going to be hard, but if any EFB can turn the contest, it is probably the slick functionality of ForeFlight that will do it.
They are not the number one in the world for nothing.
More information is on the ForeFlight Australia website.