Finally! Import VFR Charts of Germany into ForeFlight

I was pretty disappointed when I got the Europe subscription for ForeFlight. It includes VFR charts for most of Europe — except Germany. Yep, the one country in the heart of the continent is missing.

Apparently, the Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS) — which is funded by the honest, hardworking taxpayer — thinks it’s more important to squeeze a few extra euros out of VFR pilots than to promote safety and accessibility in the VFR airspace.

Sure, there’s an online portal where you can view the charts or print them out manually. But the usability? Absolutely terrible. I don’t know who built that site — the Bundesdruckerei? DFS themselves? Either way, it feels like a relic the early days of the internet.

Anyway, I believe every pilot should have immediate access to safety-relevant information — especially when offline in the cockpit. So I wrote a Python script that scrapes all the PNG images of charts and documents off the DFS site and bundles them into a Custom Content Pack you can load directly into ForeFlight.

How to Get the Charts into ForeFlight

⚠️ Disclaimer: This tool is for educational purposes only. Make sure it’s legal to use in your jurisdiction.

The script is open-source and lives here:

 https://github.com/argiepilot/devfrff

To get started, just clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/argiepilot/devfrff.git
cd devfrff

What it does

This Python script scrapes the German VFR aerodrome charts from the DFS AIP portal and turns them into a ForeFlight-compatible BYOP (Bring Your Own Plates) Content Pack. That means you can import all the charts directly into ForeFlight — and have them available offline and integrated in the app like official plates.

Quick Start (with Conda)

Make sure you have Anaconda or Miniconda installed.

conda env create -f environment.yml
conda activate devfrff

python run.py

This will create a folder called AIP Germany/ containing:

• A byop/ subfolder with the PDF charts
• A manifest.json for ForeFlight compatibility
• Charts named like EDKA_Visual_Aachen-Merzbrueck 1.PDF, EDKA_Info_AD 2-3.PDF, etc.

Importing to ForeFlight

To use the content pack in ForeFlight:

1. Zip the entire AIP Germany/ folder.
2. Transfer the ZIP file to your iPad using:
   • AirDrop
   • Email
   • iTunes
   • A direct download link
   • Or via ForeFlight’s Cloud Documents feature (Pro plan or higher required)

ForeFlight will recognize it as a content pack and let you view the charts just like official ones.

For more details, check out ForeFlight’s guide: ForeFlight Content Packs Guide