Jeppesen Mobile TC (terminal charts) are available for Apple iPads on the iTunes application store for world-wide coverage. Photo courtesy Jeppesen.

Jeppesen announced Thursday that its worldwide file of instrument approach procedure charts would now be available for viewing on Apple’s extremely popular iPad tablet computer.

Jepp calls the new service Jeppesen Mobile TC, and the app to run it is available through the normal Apple iPad App Store.

The 9.7-inch display area of the iPad is almost a perfect fit for the standard size of a Jepp paper approach plate. The bright display and vivid colors of the iPad show all of the details of a printed chart.

For many years Jepp has been offering JeppView, which allows the display of charts on most computers on cockpit avionics. With the Jeppesen Mobile TC app installed on your iPad you can load, search, and display any terminal procedure chart.

If you have a JeppView subscription already, there is no extra charge from Jepp to use the service on your iPad.

JeppView arranges charts in the same order as they have been delivered in paper, so after you call up the airport by name or identifier, you can page through the procedures on your iPad just as though you were flipping the pages of a Jepp book.

Best of all—and veteran IFR pilots will appreciate this the most—there are no revisions to file. Each new JeppView download has all up-to-date charts, and they are totally replaced when the new cycle is delivered.

At this point the Jeppesen Mobile TC is intended for FAR Part 91 business and personal flying, though future iPad applications that could qualify for charter and airline flying are being studied.

Jeppesen says the iPad charts are not intended for navigational use in the cockpit, but that is sort of a CYA because the question of who needs to carry charts and in what form and how many is complicated by the type of flying you do.

Maybe you can legally toss the paper and rely on the iPad for charts, but maybe not.

In any case, this new app is a step toward a paperless cockpit and is certainly an excellent flight-planning tool for all.

Speaking of preflight planning, Jepp also announced that it has upgraded its FliteStar computerized flight-planning program to show enhanced weather on a global scale.

The new version of FliteStar allows pilots a great deal of flexibility to combine current weather information with route and wind planning.

Jeppesen also used its press conference here to announce that it is working more closely with avionics companies who build equipment for experimental airplanes.

Jepp is working with Advanced Flight Systems, Dynon Avionics, Garmin, and MGL Avionics to make its navigation data available on equipment intended for light-sport aircraft and homebuilt airplanes.

Jeppesen has built a decades-old reputation for being the only consistent worldwide supplier of navigation data and is working to provide that same accuracy and reliability in a format and at a price suitable for experimental aircraft.

That is important for needed airport and nav fix data, but Jepp is also a source for obstacle information and electronic charting.