How it all fits together

OpenVFR is built around one idea: your route, your aircraft and your position are compared against the same open data everywhere, so the map, the vertical profile, the alerts and the flight log never disagree.

The pieces

1. Data. Airspace, aerodromes, navaids, obstacles, terrain and basemap come from open sources and are refreshed on the aeronautical (AIRAC) cycle. Weather, wind and NOTAMs are fetched live. See Data sources.
2. Map. Draws the data in layers you can switch on and off. See Map and layers.
3. Route and aircraft. Your route legs plus the aircraft you pick give headings, wind correction, time and fuel. Wind for every leg comes from one place, so time, fuel and the pre-flight check agree. See Planning a route and Aircraft and fuel.
4. Vertical profile. Slices terrain, obstacles, airspace and clouds along the route (or along your flown track in a log). See Virtual Radar and vertical profile.
5. Flying mode. Takes your position from GPS (or a simulator) and feeds the alerts, auto zoom and the flight log. See Flying mode and alerts.
6. Flight logs. Recorded during flying mode, reviewed on the same profile. See Flight logs.
7. Account and sync. You sign in once. Weather, NOTAMs and traffic come through your account, and routes, aircraft, places, logs and settings stay the same across your devices. See Account and sync.

Ideas that apply everywhere

• Airspace limits are heights in their own reference. A limit in AGL is a height above the ground, not an altitude. OpenVFR converts before comparing with your altitude.
• Alerts are deliberately quiet. Debounce, merged cards and levels per airspace category keep the stack readable. See Flying mode and alerts.
• Works offline for what you have loaded. Live data (weather, NOTAMs, traffic, forecast wind) needs a connection and shows its age. See Offline use.
• Same rules on every platform. Calculations are shared between the web and native apps. The differences are in sensors and device features: see Web app and native app.