Pondering some cross countries the other day and I thought it would be interesting if you could get your gps or gps app/fore flight/ipad  whatever they are called to pop up neat stuff as you fly over?  

There’s a bridge in Wichita that is engraved with “the destination is not the reward, the journey is” or some such. That rreasonated with me as with young kids I was always stressed out to get to the destination…

So, in pondering “enjoying the moment “ I’m like, oh hell, now I have FOMO that I may miss something cool and so…. That app concept popped into my head

Google My Maps

You can kind of do this with Foreflight / Garmin Pilot and Google My Maps.

Go to Google My Maps, linked above.  Create a new map, create a waypoint or path to or around any interesting things you want to see on the flight.  After you've made your points and lines, export it as a .kml file.

You can then import that .kml file into Foreflight or Garmin Pilot as a new layer.

When I was flight instructing I used this method to map out confines of our different practice areas and their frequencies, came in pretty handy.  Most people who fly have a destination or pre-planned scenic routes planned ahead of time.  I don't know anyone that just aimlessly flies around looking for things to see from the air though.

I have an app called GPS Test Plus that has a feature where you can tag locations and it will tell you how far you are from them and what direction you need to go to reach them. Normally you just tag locations when you are there, but you can also manually enter latitude and longitude as well.

I used it a lot when I was a ride-along mechanic. If I wanted to know how far I was from certain airports I would hold my phone up to the window and then it would show me.

The database of interesting places would have to be stored on the device.

I'm able to use OSM And on my phone in Airplane mode, as the maps are stored on the device, just have to turn on GPS.  Pretty fun to geolocate towns, highways, etc as we fly over at 450 mph.