Jepp MobileFD Matures, Slowly

As a company, Jeppesen is an enigma. A division of Boeing with a long history of quality and innovative chart products, they seem to have been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the EFB revolution. Jeppesen was a year late to the iPad EFB app party and while the latest update to MobileFD adds cool features, Jepp is so far behind their competition it's embarrassing. Still, the latest release does add some value to an already pricey app.

No-no, Geo-Ref

The most obvious feature that Jepp users have been waiting for - geo-referenced approach procedures - is still not available. You can get geo-referenced airport diagrams, so it obvious that Jepp knows how to provide this feature, they just haven't. And that makes the situation even more puzzling.

Rubber-Band, Man!

With the latest version you can do route planning with taps on the en route chart. The you can change your route on the same en route chart with rubber-banding - Tap, drag, drop to re-route. A dialog will appear with the available waypoints.

Chart Printing

Jeppesen has done something fairly radical (for them) in this release: Users now have the ability to print approach charts, SIDs and airport diagrams directly from the iPad without having to install and use Jepp's infamously buggy PC software. Printing from the iPad is especially handy if you aren't a PC user (the CD-ROMs that Jepp sent with my MobileFD subscription were never opened). For my printing needs I use Printopia running on my MacBook Pro, which allows me to print from my iPad to my HP LaserJet 2015. It works like a champ.

DO NOT USE FOR NAVIGATION!

Other Enhancements

A new screen lock button prevents inadvertent screen input during critical phases of flight. Especially handy to prevent unwanted tap input while flying in turbulence.

Readers may recall my lamenting about the Clear button on the route window deleting everything; The route, origin, and the destination as well as the all the alternates. Jepp developers have done the sensible thing and Clear now just clears the route, which is a big improvement.

There's a new GPS status icon that is always visible near the top of the screen, but the maddening part is you have exit the app and to go to the iPad Settings to enable the GPS. What's more, there isn't just one setting, but two; one for en route position display and one for terminal (though you only get geo-referencing on airport diagrams). It's beyond me why the app can't just recognize when a GPS receiver is available and use it. Perhaps Jeppesen's larger customers don't want their flight crews using unapproved GPS receivers?

Once your GPS receiver is configured, you can proceed direct-to anywhere on the map by tapping, but the interface is quirky: Proceeding direct-to a waypoint actually alters the waypoints contained in the route; waypoints you may have spent a lot of time entering. Bummer about that. And try as I might, I couldn't find a way to activate a leg in the route. Jeppesen implementation of this commonly understood feature borders on the bizarre.

Documents in the Cloud

If you subscribe to Jeppesen's Document Management Service you can upload your documents and have them pushed to authorized devices via a proprietary cloud interface. You need to enable this feature in iPad Settings and then you'll see a login dialog appear in Jeppesen MobileFD. This document feature will be very useful for operators who need to distribute OpSpec manuals and other company documents, though one wonders how much that service costs. At any rate, the document cloud doesn't appear to offer much utility to the average GA pilot.

Uncertain Conclusions

Jepp MobileFD has the dubious distinction of being the priciest iPad EFB solution out there, yet it seems that Jeppesen is more interested in the Big Fish than the average instrument pilot. If you still must have Jeppesen charts, then this is what you have to work with. It ain't all bad, but Jeppesen certainly could and should offer more given the app's price tag.

ForeFlight Mobile adds Documents

ForeFlight Mobile 4.4 has added a way to store and view PDF documents on the iPad. ForeFlight provides versions of popular FAA handbooks, parts of the Airport/Facility Directory previously not available in this app, and chart legends for download and manages those files just like a chart subscription. This ForeFlight video explains the documents feature in great detail.

Documents in ForeFlight Mobile from ForeFlight on Vimeo.

The document reader provides indexed documents and allows you to save bookmarks. Complex pages, like illustrations the one below from the FAA's Instrument Flying Handbook, can take a while to render (though they seem to render much faster on the new iPad) which may leave you with the impression that the page you selected is blank. Be patient and you'll see complex pages appear.

You can download and store enhanced Class B representations. Unlike SkyCharts Pro, ForeFlight still doesn't provide important Terminal Area Chart marginalia (like the VFR routings through LA Class B) shown below. Hopefully that will be coming soon.

To store your own PDF document in ForeFlight, simply need to email it as an attachment, open the email using the iPad Mail app, tap on the attachment icon, tap the icon in the right upper corner, tap on Open In ..., and select ForeFlight from the list of available apps.

For operators who want to distribute electronic copies of important company documents, like the latest version of their OpSpec, the ForeFlight documents feature should save a lot of paper, weight and heartache. ForeFlight continues to do a good job of balancing their app's feature set so that it is useful for individual pilots as well as commercial operators. ForeFlight also doesn't seem to be afraid to innovate and at this rate, the competition has a lot of catching-up to do.

iPad 3 - Heat and Battery Issues

Just a quick update on two hot topics regarding the iPad 3 (aka the new iPad); heat and battery life.

Hotter not necessarily Better

Engadget has passed on some work done by Tweakers.net. Using an infrared camera, they photographed the iPad 2 and iPad 3 side-by-side. After five minutes of running the GLBenchmark app, the iPad 3 was about 5˚C warmer at 33.6˚C (92.5˚F) than the iPad 2.

Heat is certainly an issue for pilots using an iPad EFB in non-airconditioned cockpits in hot weather, but it's too cool in my neighborhood to provide any empirical data on the iPad 3 just yet. I can say that I've flown with both the iPad 1 and the iPad 2 in some hot weather and I saw my iPad 1 display the "Help me Spock, I'm too hot!" message, but only once. The outside air temperate at the time was over 100˚F. I simply turned the iPad 1 off, moved it to the shade, directed an air vent toward it, and it a minute it was operating again.

I've flown in similar temperatures with the iPad 2 and have never had it overheat, perhaps because I was more conscious of the possibility. The iPad has no internal fan and all the heat is radiated by the outside case, so the techniques I recommend for keeping any iPad from overheating are:

• Don't run the display continuously
• If possible, run the display slightly dimmed
• Turn off 3G or 4G
• Avoid cases and kneeboards that completely enclose the iPad
• Avoid dark colored cases and covers
• Keep the iPad out of direct sunlight
• Direct an air vent toward the iPad
• Don't leave your iPad inside a parked car or aircraft

If your iPad does overheat, turn it off and wait.

Battery Life

The iPad 1 and iPad 2 have demonstrated a solid battery life of at least 8 hours under intermittent use, but the iPad 3 with 4G appears to be a different story. It takes more juice to drive that high-density display and the latest 4G hardware. I flew with a pilot last night who purchased an iPad 3 with 4G and we tried an experiment. He started the flight with 97% battery capacity and he left cellular data and LTE turned on. I had 99% capacity on my iPad 3 WiFi.

After 35 minutes, his battery was down to 85% capacity while mine showed about 97%. He turned cellular data and LTE off which leaves the internal GPS on and functioning. After flying for another 45 minutes, his battery showed 78% capacity while mine showed 94%.

I should note that we were approaching dusk, we had both dimmed our displays about halfway through the flight. Another difference was that the 4G iPad's display was running pretty much continuously. My various app display options were set to sleep, so my iPad 3's display was probably on less that 50% of the time.

My recommendation for getting the most out of the iPad's battery (regardless of model):

• Don't run the display continuously
• When possible, dim the display
• Use an external power adapter (charging will undoubtedly generate heat)
• Use an external battery
• Turn off LTE and Cellular Data while in flight

In ForeFlight Settings, turn on the option Allow Device to Sleep.

For Jepp MobileFD, go to iPad Settings, select JeppFD, and turn Sleep Mode on.

For SkyChartsPro, go to iPad Settings, select SkyChartsPro, and turn off Display always on.

If you are traveling and plan to use 4G while on the ground, you'd be well advised to carry an AC power adapter and use it.

Cost of Change

These two iPad 3 issues are not necessarily deal-breakers for those wanting to upgrade, but they will need to be managed. What, you thought you'd get razor-sharp graphics and fast wireless data for nothin'?

New iPad Review

There's the knock at the door, you feel the package in your hands, you unwrap it ... Who doesn't like the excitement of exploring new stuff?

If you've read the reviews to date you probably know the basics: The new iPad is a bit faster than the iPad 2, it has more cache, but it also needs that cache to support the high-density "retina" display. If you choose to get the 4G model (I chose Wifi), there are reports of impressive data bandwidth - 14MB/sec or better in some urban areas. Used judiciously, this could be a very good thing. Use that bandwidth gratuitously and you'll go through your monthly data limit in no time, not to mention your battery.

The new iPad is a bit thicker and heavier than the iPad 2, but to tell the truth I couldn't really notice any difference. If you have a magnetic Smart Cover, it will work just fine with the new iPad. Rear cases for the iPad 2 are incompatible with the new iPad and third-party suppliers are only now beginning to get some offerings out there. On eBay I found an inexpensive, bare-bones transparent case for the new iPad that works with the Smart Cover for a mere $12.99, including shipping. Other third-party cases may be sexier, but they can set you back as much as $60, or more.

Early benchmarks seem to indicate the iPad 2 and the new iPad are essentially the same when it comes to processor and memory performance. I find the new iPad a bit faster when it comes to downloading chart updates and the crispness of the retina display is a noticeable improvement when viewing PDFs and Jeppesen's rendered charts. Try something like scrolling through Google Earth and you'll see a marked difference. In general, most any text that is rendered on the new iPad's retina display looks a lot better.

Storage, WiFi, 4G ...

I previously recommended the 16GB iPad as being sufficient for most pilots. Lately I've had to clean out unused apps and data from my iPad 2 because I was down to 1.8GB of free storage. For the new iPad, I chose 32GB and that seems to be adequate for my needs. Then again I have loaded three EFB apps as well as numerous presentations, spreadsheets, and PFD documents. If you want to store a lot of music or a movies for that long airline flight, you may want to give some thought to more storage or consider an external storage device.

My choice was to continue to with the WiFi model rather than go 4G, mainly for budgetary reasons. Yesterday I flew with a pilot who had just gotten the 4G version. Just before engine start, he realized he hadn't transferred his ForeFlight Checklists. No problem. He was able to sync his check list to his iPad over 4G in what seemed like about 10 seconds. As an aside, ForeFlight Checklist Pro, having been designed for the iPhone and needing to be run in 2X mode, looks fantastic on the new iPad retina display.

The downside of 4G would seem to be battery life. After a 1.5 hour flight, the battery on the new iPad 4G was down to 5% from almost being about half charged at the start of the flight. More investigation needs to be done, but it would appear that disabling 4G or using an auxiliary power source in flight is a must with the new iPad. After two solid days of flying, my new iPad WiFi battery life seems exactly the same as the iPad 2.

Another preliminary observation is that my new iPad may run a bit warmer. Right now the weather is cool in Northern California, so time will tell if the extra graphics and cache will contribute to higher operating temperatures. Right now, I haven't seen any heat-related issues.

Upgrade or Wait?

To buy or not to buy? That is the question for many pilots. If you are an original iPad owner, moving up to the new iPad is a no-brainer. If you currently own an iPad 2, I don't see a pressing reason to upgrade unless you need 4G performance, you have filled up your storage, you have need for the retina display, or you just must have the latest/greatest and you have the requisite disposable income. If you do choose to trade up from the iPad 2, you'll undoubtedly be able to sell it for a higher price now than if you wait until the next product offering.

Rumors abound about a smaller form factor (7.85") iPad being released in October 2012 to compete with the Kindle-sized readers. A smaller iPad could be a viable device for yoke mounting in an aircraft, but we all know about rumors. The reasonable assumption would seem to be that any follow-on to the new iPad (whatever it will be called) won't hit the market for at least another year. The bottom-line for me is that the new iPad WiFi is drop-in replacement for the iPad 2 and performs just a well as its predecessor.

Diversion, Conversion

Cruising along at 5,500 feet, en route to the Columbia airport, my student had good reason to believe he’d never get there. Sure enough, in preparation for his upcoming private pilot check ride, I asked him divert to another airport. He began circling over a chosen landmark, produced a VFR chart, drew a course line, estimated the heading, distance, time, and fuel required to the new airport, all the while maintaing altitude and looking for traffic. His juggling of these priorities was impressive, but he soon discovered that his chart had been folded so many times that the frequencies for the new destination airport had been rendered illegible. Flustered, he scrambled to locate his Airport/Facility Directory while I kept an eye out for traffic and mused about how many times a day pilots must now be asking their instructors “Is it okay for me to use my iPad?”

I’ve logged nearly 1200 hours since my first flight with the iPad 1 and frankly, I’ve never looked back. When I was still searching for the ideal EFB back in 2009, I explained how the FAA doesn’t require any certification or qualification for EFBs under most Part 91 operations. Just recently, the FAA’s own Safety Briefing publication had yet another article making the same observations. Given that pilots are adopting EFBs faster than you can say “decommissioned NDB,” it’s time for instructors to start making EFBs part of the training they offer as well as part of their own training. I tell student pilots I train “Go ahead and use an iPad if you want, but be prepared with a credible back-up strategy in case your iPad fails or your instructor decides to simulate a failure.”


Before you start gnashing your teeth, complaining about newfangled gadgets, and pining for the good old days of slide rules, cigarettes smoking in the cockpit, and navigating via A-N Range, consider that combining old techniques with new approaches can actually aid in teaching pilots to that elusive correlative level of knowledge. The key concept here is combining approaches, not rejecting one in favor of the other. Here’s an overview of the old school approach, followed by some mash-ups of familiar approaches with new tools and software.

Old School Planning

The first half dozen times through the cross-country flight planning process, I like student pilots to do navigation calculations manually so they’ll understand and appreciate what their EFB or flight planning software will eventually be doing for them. My favorite nav log form is available for free from Dauntless-Software. The two basic variations in nav logs involve whether the True Course (TC) is first corrected for magnetic variation or for the wind correction angle.

ATC uses and refers to magnetic directions, so I say cut to the chase and go magnetic. Winds aloft forecasts are provided with true directions, so you'll need to account for that if you choose the TC-VAR-MC-WCA-MH format.

Virtually all nav logs end up with a Compass Heading (CH), to which I say “Who cares?” If you always set your aircraft's heading indicator using the compass correction card, calculating a CH is simply gilding the lily. If your aircraft doesn't have a heading indicator, then by all means compute the CH until such time as you manage to catch up with the later half of 20th century aviation technology.

I teach students to complete a paper nav log in this general sequence.

1. Calculate climb performance and ground speed
2. Determine the location of the Top-of-Climb (TOC)
3. Calculate cruise performance and ground speed
4. Determine the location of the Time-of-Descent (TOD).
5. Divide the course between the TOC and TOD into legs of equal length.

Aircraft consume more fuel and have a slower ground speed during the climb to altitude, so calculating where you'll reach the top-of-climb (TOC) is important. And if you want to avoid arriving high and hot, the time-of-descent is something you’ll want to plan for. Want to use an electronic E6B instead of a slide rule to do these calculations? Fine by me.

With TOC and TOD marked on your chart, try dividing the remaining course into legs of equal length. Sometimes this works, sometimes there aren’t good landmarks. If defining equal leg distances does work, you only need to calculate time, fuel, and distance for one leg to have the numbers for the other legs. Choosing landmarks on a paper chart is the ultimate in flexibility: You can choose whatever you want. With an EFB or internet-based planner, waypoints selection is as simple.

High-Tech Planning

The sad fact is we're well into the second millennium and there aren’t many computerized flight planners that account for the time- or fuel-to-climb. A few internet-based planners that do (to varying degrees) include DUAT (not to be confused with DUATS), AOPA’s Flight Planner, and FlightAware.

Once you’ve entered a profile for your aircraft, the DUAT flight planner will provide the location TOC and TOD in latitude/longitude format. Not terribly handy, but it also provides a magnetic course and distance which does turn out to be useful. More on that later.

The browser-based flight planners from AOPA and FlightAware both account for fuel consumed in the climb and descent, but they don’t tell you where TOC and TOD are located. Bummer about that.

FlightAware’s planner adds some value by including the estimated fuel costs for various altitudes, winds aloft forecast, and routes. In this example you can see that you’d only save a few bucks by climbing to 11,000 feet versus 9,000 feet. To access FlightAware’s flight planning features, you’ll need to set up an account. Don’t worry, it’s a free and simple process. Be advised that FlightAware’s planner doesn’t work completely on the iPad browsers I’ve tried.

So what about specifying waypoints that aren’t pre-defined objects like airports, VORs or airway intersections? Most planners allow you to enter your own waypoints as Lat/Long coordinates or as a VOR-radial-distance. That’s not terribly user-friendly, but it works.
You can add custom checkpoints in ForeFlight’s map view by tapping on the map view. A dialog will appear allowing you to add the location as a user-defined coordinate. If you tap on your course line, it’s easy to inadvertently change the course slightly and you won’t know the leg distance until you’ve tapped, but there you go.

If you know the lat/long for a waypoint, you can enter that into a ForeFlight route. Below, the lat/long that DUAT calculated for TOC has been entered as a TOC waypoint.

If you know the distance and radial from a VOR, you can enter a waypoint in ForeFlight using theta/rho format: VOR_id/radial/distance. This approach also works with airport identifiers. Below, I’ve taken the TOC and TOD data from the DUAT flight planner output and entered them as waypoints in the format KOAK/133/16 and KSBA/315/29.

Nav Log in Action

Using a paper nav log in flight starts with recording your departure time. For short trips, just record the two-digit minutes after the hour. Then to calculate estimated time of arrival (ETA) for the next checkpoint, add the time your off time to the estimated time en route (ETE) for the first checkpoint. When you reach the checkpoint, record the actual time of arrival (ATA), add that to the next ETE and you have the ETA for the next checkpoint. If your ETA calculations consistently differ from the ATA, consider doing an winds aloft and TAS calculation.

ForeFlight kinda-sorta follows the paper nav log tradition, but the assumption is that ForeFlight will use GPS information to calculate your estimated time en route for each leg in real-time based on your current ground speed. I find ForeFlight’s nav log display a bit cumbersome and difficult to read in flight, but that could be due to my 50-something eyesight. If you want a historical record, why not combine a paper nav log with your EFB?

Electronic Diversion

Planning an in-flight diversion with an app like ForeFlight is the height of simplicity.

1. Tap and hold on the airport to which you wish to divert
2. A dialog will appear showing the known waypoints in the area
3. Tap on the orange D-> button for the selection you 

EFBs can provide real-time calculation of the desired track, ETE, and fuel consumed, but you can do the same sort of thing with many panel mounted GPS. Electronic diversions are so easy and with no plotter, pencil and calculator to juggle, it's no wonder some pilots feel they are cheating. Hand-calculated diversions can be just as dangerous as fixating on pretty colors on a moving map. Having a quick way to calculate a diversion in real life gives you more time to look outside for traffic and manage whatever emergency or urgent situation you're facing. That seems like a good thing, not the work of the devil.

Combine and Conquer

Whether it be in paper format, electronic format, or a combination of the two, preparing and using a nav log in flight can be a curiously satisfying experience. Teaching student pilots the old ways is still a valuable part of the aviation education equation, but introducing and integrating new tools doesn't need to detract from the experience. High tech solutions can enhance accuracy and safety. As with anything in aviation, understanding the limitations of technology is a more productive approach that rejecting new techniques out-of-hand. To my mind, if a pilot can learn the basics and then combine old school and way cool, that strikes at the heart of the vaunted correlative level of knowledge.

Five Reason to NOT upgrade to iOS 5

The latest update to the operating systems for iPhones and iPads (known as iOS) as well as for Macs (MacOS) has not been without problems. Some of the issues are significant for pilots using the iPad as an electronic flight bag. While I normally feel relatively comfortable being on the bleeding edge of Apple's software releases, the latest releases of iOS and MacOS do not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Those who have upgraded need to understand the unintended consequences of Apple's design changes.

Reason #1 - Data going missed

My original buying iPad advice for pilots on a budget was to opt for an iPad with less memory. 16Gb seemed to be fine for most of us, but the new WiFi syncing feature in iOS 5 has changed that advice. Apps that need to store a lot of data (like aviation charts) must now store that data in a user cache. The motivation was to force apps to store data in a location that would not be backed-up so as to reduce the amount of data transferred during WiFi syncing. Unfortunately, the user cache in iOS 5 is automatically cleaned up by the iOS if it starts running low on space. Download several seasons of Treme to your iPad along with the latest release from Coldplay and you might find you no longer have the approach charts you need. A cogent explanation can be found here.

It appears Apple engineers and marketeers made this design choice because they assumed that iPad users would always has access to a fast internet connection. Such hubris! Not everyone lives and works in an environment with 24/7 access to a blindingly fast network. Many of us use our iPads offline for the simple reason that internet access may not be available. In one fell swoop, iOS 5 threatens to hobble what is one of the best EFB platform produced to date by violating one of the basic tenants of any computing platform - data integrity. This cleaning feature needs to be undone, a setting needs to be provided to override this behavior, or another option needs to provided to apps that store a bunch of offline data. And something must be done and soon.

Reason #2 - Multi-tasking Gestures, for some

in a classic case of the large print giveth and the small print taketh away, iPad 1 users may have been led to think than upgrading to iOS 5 would provide them access to multi-tasking gestures, but only iPad 2 users get that feature. There's no valid technical reason for this restriction and since the half-life of these devices is relatively short, this appears to be a sort of planned obsolescence.

If Apple sticks it to customers who purchased the original iPad, the result may only be fewer loyal customers lining up to buy the iPad 3. There is this hack that purportedly allows iPad 1 users who upgrade to enable gestures in iOS 5. I haven't tried this hack myself or seen it, so use it at your own risk.

Reason #3 - iCloud just ain't there ... yet

The introduction of iCloud is reminiscent of the introduction MobileMe where allegedly there was a meeting with Steve Jobs and some of the developers. The story goes that Jobs asked for an explanation of what MobileMe was supposed to do. After listening to the explanations, Jobs purportedly asked "So why the ^%$ doesn't it do that?"

I'm accustomed to Apple designs being easy-to-use, but I must confess to being a bit flummoxed by iCloud. With MobileMe and iDisk, one could purchase storage space and store whatever data you wanted. The iCloud implementation is anything but open. You can store data from Numbers, Keynote, and Pages on iCloud, but I can't seem to store proprietary data. Supposedly one can create folders to organize stored material, but I can't seem to figure it out.

If you turn on the iCloud Backup, the good news is you won't need a desktop device to backup your iPad or iPhone. The bad news is you may fill up your complementary 5Gb of iCloud storage in a hurry. Material purchased from iTunes is stored for free, but I don't buy Apple's claim that 5GB goes a long way. Sure you can select which apps get backed up to the iCloud, but that turns in a part-time job. This is not the seamless user experience that Apple has been known for and the skeptic in me wonders if perhaps the real intent is for the sale of 100Gb of iCloud storage at $100/year to become a significant revenue stream.

Reason #4 - Mail, Contacts, and Calendar issues

For users who rely on mail, contact, and calendar access on multiple devices, iCloud is a mess. As a contract pilot and flight instructor I use three different devices - Macbook, iPhone, and iPad. Right after upgrading I was unable to retrieve email on any of my devices because iCloud complained my userid or password was invalid. Apparently Apple's servers were getting slammed because after eight hours, I was able to retrieve mail. Yet on my iPad I still see a message saying my Mac ID or password is incorrect. I went to the iCloud web site and changed my password to force things to reset, but when I changed my password on my iPad, it automatically changed back to the old password. The bizarre thing is that I can still retrieve my email! Avoiding this sort of time-consuming crap is why I started using Apple products in the first place.

My iCal calendar migrated just fine, but I can no longer share it with my wife (who hasn't yet upgraded to the latest version of MacOS). A big step backward.

Reason #5 - Security Issues

Every cloud-computing implementation is supposed to be convenient, but a lot of us seem to be ignoring (or denying) the possible security issues. Trivial uses of iCloud include storing purchased music and videos, but storing private or sensitive data is a much bigger risk.  Letting someone else store your data online is an especially convenient arrangement for thieves, criminals, and others who might not have your best interests at heart.

Knowing where your data is being stored and the laws that affect the jurisdiction where your data is stored is something many users don't consider.

Any cloud data storage provider worth their salt should be monitoring access to their cloud, but this is an expensive undertaking. Aside from basic physical and electronic access security, it's not clear than any cloud provider is doing much to ensure user data is not being compromised.

Root of all Evil

As any company becomes more and more successful, the inevitable erosion in quality of customer service occurs. I don't know if it's the mania for continued growth, the thirst for more income streams, the influx of marketeers and bean-counters, or just the sheer number of user, but Apple's image appears to this long-time customer as being more than a bit tarnished.

Captain Snarky

Don't Use for Navigation!

The mainstream aviation press is saying good things about Jeppesen Mobile FD, but I'm not sure where to start. As a long-time Jeppesen customer, I've found myself saying things like "Sure Jeppesen products are more expensive and offer fewer features than other iPad EFB solutions, but this is just the first release." Or "Jeppesen has always offered a premium product and heck, some major airlines are planning to use their software on the iPad - That's pretty good." Or "Someday Jeppesen will provide MacOS-based installers, I'm sure of it." Then I remember that one of the goals of blogging is to provide readers with the unvarnished truth. After many hours of using Jeppesen Mobile FD in-flight, here's what I see as the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Bang for the Buck

Let's get this out front, in case you haven't heard: Jeppesen Mobile FD subscriptions are overpriced. Not just a little, waaay overpriced. Currently there is only support for geo-referenced en route charts in Jepp Mobile FD and a subscription covering just California costs about $125 a year. For $150 a year, I get ForeFlight with geo-referenced en route and approach charts for all the areas supported by Aeronav - That's the entire US, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the South Pacific. Add in ForeFlight's weather briefing and flight planning features and it's pretty easy to justify the annual cost.

A fairer comparison to Jeppesen Mobile FD is SkyCharts Pro, which offers only minimal weather features. SkyCharts Pro costs $20 a year for the same US chart coverage as ForeFlight. Compare that to many hundreds of dollars a year for similar Jepp coverage and, well that's just embarrassing.

Jeppesen does provide chart support for many foreign countries, but for US fliers it's hard to justify the cost.

The Good

Jeppesen has nice chart products that are clean and easy to read. Jepp charts provide added value with touches like a wider range of approach speeds and descent or climb rates in feet per minute. Jepp also describes the effects of inoperative equipment right in the minima section, which is very user-friendly.

Don't Use for Navigation!

Jeppesen adds some value, but since Aeronav adopted the briefing strip format a while back, there's not a lot of difference between the two product lines. Jepps don't provide an inset map like the Aeronav charts, which is a huge dis-advantage when conducting a circling approach. Yet pilots get attached to Jepps and find Aeronav charts foreign and clumsy, leading to an argument not unlike North-up versus Track-up or the old pitch/power debate. Whatever ...

Once Jepp Mobile FD is installed, downloading charts seems simple enough if you have a fast network. I'm blessed with a fast ADSL network (you can throw a rock from my front porch and hit the telco's switch building), so the updates seldom take more than a few minutes to install.

The Mobile FD interface has a clean appearance and the chart display is good. There's an easy-to-access screen dimmer, too. There is the issue of landscape format SIDs and STARs, but Aeronav has the same problem.

Jepp Mobile FD's flight planning function lets you specify alternate airports, a great feature and something Garmin has neglected in their GPS flight planning interface for over a decade. And Mobile FD lets you quickly access the terminal procedures for all the airports in your flight plan, something SkyCharts Pro and ForeFlight could learn from.

Wart Factor

The flight planning feature understands most victor airways, with some caveats. If your route includes intersecting victor airways, you must include the intersection that the airways have in common. The flight planner doesn't seem to understand departure or arrival procedures either. Bummer about that.

See the Clear button above the route? Tap on it and you clear not just the route, but all the airports, too! This is dumb for a bunch of obvious reasons. First, said button is located just above route, which leads one to assume that tapping it will clear just the route. Second, the button doesn't say Clear All. Third, there are a bunch of times I'd want to clear a route during the planning stage without blowing away the departure, destination, and alternate airports. Lastly, there is already an X button at the end of each of the airport fields so you can clear them individually. I don't know who is doing Jeppesen's U/I design and usability testing, but they could use some help.

Having spent the better part of my adult life involved in software development, I get the impression that time-to-market pressures overshadowed Jeppesen's QA and acceptance testing. The first version of Mobile FD had more bugs than an Illinois barbecue in June. Subsequent versions have gotten better. The latest version finally offers geo-referencing, but only on en route charts. That's a step in the right direction, but the geo-referencing is clunky and counter-intuitive: You have to tap a button to get Mobile FD to interface with your GPS receiver. All the other iPad EFB software I've used just see that the GPS is there and use it.

Once you've gotten Mobile FD to recognize your iPad's GPS, keep in mind that geo-referencing will be disabled when you display your flight plan. What's up with that? I found that the en route geo-referencing can get ... um ... confused. While supervising an instrument student who was flying a practice DME arc, Mobile FD had some difficulty figuring out which way the aircraft was headed. SkyCharts Pro and ForeFlight had no problem displaying the correct track.

FFM isn't confused ...

SkyCharts Pro isn't confused ...

You're headed the wrong way McFly!

Ugly, Really Ugly

If all this wasn't enough tarnish on the hallowed Jeppesen reputation, here's the capper. Jeppesen Mobile FD's latest chart release contains out-of-date charts for California. That's right. Jeppesen didn't notify me or, to my knowledge, any of their customers. I happened to discover this on my own and had to query them. The two examples I know of (there may be more) are the new RNAV approaches to Petaluma and Willows-Glenn, which replaced the old GPS approaches.

Don't Use for Navigation

Guess we wait until Sept 21?

The new RNAV approaches don't just offer LPV minima that are considerably lower, the fix names and approach courses have changed significantly. Trying to fly one of these approaches with an out-of-date chart could be a serious safety-of-flight issue.

When I emailed Jeppesen's tech support about this, the response was that these approaches would be in the next release. I asked them to verify that Jepp Mobile FD didn't contain all the current charts for California and their response was that the FAA made a large number of changes that overwhelmed Jeppesen's charting division. And for this they charge a premium price?

It's Got to Get Better

I've been a Jeppesen customer for many years, but it keeps getting harder and harder to justify the expense. Buggy software, no MacOS support, and Windows software that can make you want to tear you hair out. I want to like Jeppesen, really I do. It's just not clear that Jeppesen cares about me.

Long Odds, Happy Endings

Pilots, by and large, like to be in control and there are many ways to accomplish that goal. One way or another we have to manage risk if we're to maintain control. One way to manage risk is thoroughly planning each flight, but the best laid plans don't always pan out. Prudent pilots like to have more than one plan - the illustrious Plan B. There are folks out there who do little or no planning, just assuming that everything will be fine. Perhaps they are optimists or believe themselves to be Super Pilot, capable of handling anything than arrises. Having one or more back-up plans, just in case, is a wise choice because the unexpected is always waiting for us. It's all a matter of odds.

Rushed and Forgotten

A busy schedule recently had me instructing in seven different aircraft types in seven days. Long hours and fatigue are not good ingredients for beginning a safe flight. That crossed my mind as I was running out the door last week to head to the airport. It also crossed my mind that my minimalist flight bag felt lighter than usual. This was just a passing thought until, settling into the right seat of the aircraft in which I was about to instruct, it became obvious why my flight bag was so light. I'd left my iPad at home and so it was time for an unplanned test of my back-up strategies: Using my iPhone and the minimal selection of paper charts I keep in my flight bag.

SkyCharts Pro and ForeFlight work just fine on the iPhone, though there's no GPS to be had. That's because, being a good citizen, I put my iPhone into airplane mode before takeoff and that disables bluetooth. Not to worry because plan B was the very capable panel-mounted GPS receiver in the aircraft.

With the iPhone I can do virtually everything normally done on the iPad with the main disadvantage being the small size of the iPhone's screen. There were a few more differences: I haven't enabled multi-tasking gestures on my iPhone and some of the user interface details of ForeFlight are different from the iPad version. I appreciate a good challenge so it was time to adjust, adapt, and overcome.

Taking Notes, iPhone style

My weapon of choice for writing notes in flight is the iPad app Penultimate, but it isn't supported on the iPhone. Turns out there is a free iPhone app that offers similar features. Sure, I had to write smaller letters and use more pages, but Handwriting worked surprisingly well. There's no erase or undo. If you make a mistake, just start a new note. Did I mention it's a free app?

Back-up Paper Charts

Printing paper copies of local terminal procedures should be a part of every iPad pilot's back-up strategy. For me, nothing beats ReadyProcs, a Java-based app that runs on a bunch of different operating systems. I print out a selection of charts, in booklet format, staple them and slip them in my flight bag. No muss, no fuss.

In the unlikely event of an iPhone failure, I still have a basic complement of paper charts.

All in SloMo

Lately I've been fortunate to teach occasionally in a new, air conditioned Cirrus and the AC certainly does reduce fatigue in hot weather. Climbing out on top of a Bay Area cloud layer, I watched as my GNS 5870 bluetooth receiver came unstuck from dashboard, fell between my knees, glanced off the carpeted shroud that covers part of the AC (the evaporator unit, I think) under the right front passenger seat, before it disappeared with an odd rattle. Moving my seat back and feeling around confirmed my worst suspicion: My bluetooth GPS must have fallen through one of the numerous gaps in that shroud. It would have to be retrieved once we were back on the ground.

The interesting part was that in spite of being shielded by a fair amount of metal, the seat itself, and 175 pounds of pilot, the GNS 5870 kept satellite lock for the rest of the flight. The iPad continued to show the same ground speed and location as the G1000. Pretty remarkable ...

Back on earth, it became clear that tools would be required to retrieve the GPS. I carefully removed two bolts from the front of the AC shroud, but another fastener underneath the right seat still held the shroud in place. Uncomfortable with the idea of removing the seat, I was able to lift the front of the shroud enough to see the GNS 5870 lodged on the inboard side of the AC equipment and retrieve it. We replaced the two bolts and I intend to try leaving the GPS in my shirt pocket while flying air conditioned Cirrus aircraft!

Something New under the Sun

Pilots who rely on GPS got a wake-up call recently as increased solar flare activity began to affect GPS and WAAS signal integrity. It's important to remember that GPS, like any navigational system, has limitations. Solar activity can affect GPS signals and that's just what happened last week.

WAAS LPV availability on 8/6/2011

Things are mostly back to normal, but the Northeast and the Upper Great Lake states appear to have been most affected on the date shown. The unusual solar activity is forecast to continue. Regardless of where you live, be ready to navigate by alternate means and don't count on getting LPV minima on RNAV approaches. To access the current status of the LPV service volume (along with other cool GPS stuff), you might want to bookmark this link.

Power of ... Love

After our basenji Hunter passed away in 2008, we waited a year before deciding to get a new dog through Basenji Rescue and Transport (BRAT). We adopted a pair of tricolor basenji about 2 1/2 years ago and though it was initially challenging, it has been immensely rewarding. When Rio and Kadee (aka Taz) came to us, a lot of training and compassion were required. We were Rio's fifth home and it was clear that someone along the way had been unkind to him. He was very mistrustful of men, in particular, and easily frightened. Unwinding his fearful behavior required a lot of patience.

Kadee came to us with the name Taz and though she became comfortable in our home, she remained aloof and distant. After about a year, it occurred to me to try calling her by her original name, Kadee. The results were remarkable and if you ask me, anyone who says dogs don't have long memories is mistaken.

Here's a photo of Rio and Kadee, taken shortly after they'd come to live with us. I'd forgotten how underweight Rio was at the time - just under 20 pounds.

Here's a photo from last week. Kadee is more attentive and Rio now weighs in at a normal 24.5 pounds. In a highly competitive society, it's good to stop and remember that care, attention and love can overcome even longest of odds.

Sweat the Small Stuff

Papers pile up on your desk, stuff accumulates in your garage, weeds grow in your garden, and you reach a point where action must be taken. Call it cleaning house or a garage sale, nothing beats finally clearing away all the junk, reorganizing, and simplifying. Think about complexity in aviation, specifically under Instrument Flight Rules, and it's easy to see some house cleaning is in order. Needless complexity in aircraft equipment and instrument procedures has increased errors, gaffes, and worse on the part of controllers and pilots alike. Both the FAA and GA manufacturers could take simple steps to clean things up and here is a list of just a few of the needed fixes and improvements.


By Any Other Name ...

The FAA Instrument Approach Procedures Division has done a great job of creating a plethora of RNAV approaches with vertical guidance. Kudos! Now it's time to tackle a much simpler problem: Instrument approach procedure names. They have become needlessly convoluted and naming conventions are important because pilots and controllers say those names over the radio, thousands of times a day. Pilots have to look-up instrument approaches, sorting through long lists of similarly named procedures. Add to the mix similarly named approaches to parallel runways and it's obvious that selecting the wrong approach by mistake could have serious repercussions.

Controllers and pilots can often be heard saying something like "Cleared RNAV GPS 32 approach" when it should be simply "Cleared RNAV 32 approach." Many pilots and controllers apparently don't realize that approach title items that appear in parenthesis are not to be used when referring to the approach. Who came up with that convention? Bet it wasn't a pilot or a controller.

Complicated, dumb naming conventions add no value, but they do create confusion and extra workload for all concerned. Consider this subset of the RNAV approaches at my home airport:

• KOAK RNAV (GPS) Y RWY 27R
• KOAK RNAV (RNP) Z RWY 27R
• KOAK RNAV (GPS) Y RWY 27L
• KOAK RNAV (RNP) Z RWY 27L

How about a naming scheme where RNAV would refer to approaches for use with appropriate area navigation or GPS, RNP would refer to approaches with curved paths reserved for authorized aircraft and aircrew (i.e. not most GA aircraft)? And lose the stuff in parenthesis fer cryin' out loud! The list of KOAK approaches would then read as follows:

• KOAK RNAV RWY 27R
• KOAK RNAV RWY 27L
• KOAK RNP RWY 27L
• KOAK RNP RWY 27R

That would make it easier (and safer) for everyone, now wouldn't it?

Smart Vectors-To-Final

Adhering to crossing restrictions at step-down fixes leading to an ILS is important because early interception of the glideslope does not necessarily guarantee compliance with altitude crossing restrictions outside the final approach fix (FAF). This is where Garmin's implementation of Vectors-To-Final (VTF) for instrument approaches comes under scrutiny.

Let's see, 5 plus 2.3 plus 2 = ...

Since the late 1990s, when the 430/530 units were first introduced, activating an approach with VTF has remained virtually unchanged. VTF causes any step-down fixes outside the FAF to disappear, the current waypoint becomes the FAF, and the only distance displayed is the distance to the FAF. To locate step-down fixes before the FAF, the pilot must perform some interesting mental math. This is particularly vexing because when a pilot hears a controller say "fly heading 210, vectors ILS 27 right" and they see an option named "Vectors-to-final," they naturally assume that's the option to choose. The standard operating procedure is actually to never use VTF on approaches with step-down fixes outside the FAF, even if the controller says "vectors RNAV 28 left approach."

The vectors-to-final option should result in the GPS receiver figuring out where the aircraft has intercepted the approach course and all fixes outside the FAF should be depicted. If the current behavior is required by the relevant Technical Standard Order (TSO), then Garmin and the FAA need to work to change those TSOs. Touch screens interfaces on GPS receivers are great, but pilots have been waiting for a fix for VTF behavior for over a decade. This isn't rocket science.

Alternate Airports

With the exception of the discontinued CNX 80, Garmin GPS receivers do not provide the ability to define an alternate airport as part of a programmed flight plan. In fact, the flight plan behavior of the Garmin units is so convoluted that it would take an entire blog post to describe the work-arounds pilots have to do when navigating to their alternate after a missed approach. Pilots don't need increased workload during critical phases of flight. Hello? Garmin?

Required Equipment

When pilots and instructors sit around the hangar and debate the possible reasons why ADF is required on an approach, something is wrong. An instrument approach needs to be clear so that it can be accurately flown. In the evolving world of RNAV, the convention of encoding the equipment required for an approach in the procedure name is quickly breaking down. So here's some heresy: The design details that require certain equipment for an approach should be opaque to pilots.

Pilots don't need to know why, we just need to know what. The FAA needs to list the required equipment (along with other  restrictions) on the plan view, in plain view, and in a font big enough that pilots can read. Pilots shouldn't have to theorize what stuff they need in the panel to legally fly a particular approach.

User-defined Holding Patterns

The CNX 80 allowed the pilot to program an ad hoc holding pattern and then allowed the GPS and autopilot to fly that holding pattern. The CNX80 has been discontinued and follow-on models still don't seem to have the user-defined hold feature. It's great that Garmin is working on voice-controlled avionics, but user-defined holding patterns is a basic feature that's still missing. Again beating up on Garmin, but they make it so easy. 

PT Required or No PT?

A decade ago it appeared RNAV approaches would all be designed with Terminal Arrival Areas (TAA) that would simplify the delivery of approach clearances, reduce workload on controllers, and allow pilots to navigate on their own using RNAV. While some older RNAV approaches do provide minimum safe altitude information by TAA sectors and explicitly include the No PT notation for entire TAA sectors, the TAA seems to have fallen out of favor and isn't included in many of the new RNAV approaches. Perhaps this is a cost-saving maneuver, but it sets up a bad situation with regard to procedure turns.

You were just cleared direct to an Initial Approach Fix on an RNAV approach with a 30 degree intercept to the approach course, but you're not on a transition that tells you the Hold-In-Lieu-of-Procedure turn is not required (NoPT). If the controller doesn't say "Cleared straight in RNAV ..." you're expected to fly once around the hold. Of course if the controller simply forgot to specify "straight in" and you fly the hold, you'll probably get yelled at or worse (cf. Limitation on Procedure Turns). The best advice for pilots in the situation is to query the controller if they don't get a straight-in clearance.

Perhaps depicting MSA sectors is not feasible for technical reasons, still the FAA should find a way to clearly specify when a procedure turn on an approach is required and when it isn't.

Which Weather?

Approach procedures into some non-towered airports specify that you should use the surface weather for a nearby airport. In the current age of electronic information, why can't the FAA (and by extension, Jeppesen) include the frequency for that airport's surface weather? This sort of simple cross-referencing is what computers are good at.

Digital Charts

The days of individual paper chart purchases are quickly fading and the production of these charts needs to be modernized. VFR and IFR charts need to be produced in a way that allows seamless electronic display. Many EFB users may not realize it, but there is significant effort going on behind the scenes to stitch together these charts for EFB display. And while we're at it, geo-referencing on instrument approach charts should not require significant third-party effort and cost to provide. The times they are a changin' and the Aeronav folks have been working hard to keep up with those changes. Let's hope their chart products continue to be modernized.

Jeppesen has had over a year to get their digital chart act together for the iPad, but geo-referenced en route and approach charts are still missing in action. One assumes that once these features are finally available, they still will cost you your other arm and/or leg.

Digital Documents

Cessna/Textron has probably made more training aircraft than any other manufacturer in history, but you can't get PDFs of their pilot information manuals. Diamond, Cirrus, and even Garmin provide important documents for download as PDFs. Given the rapid acceptance of electronic tablets like the iPad, Cessna needs to get with the program.

And speaking of Cessna, ever try to figure out if your aircraft's Approved Flight Manual and all of its supplements are up to date? Good luck to you because it's a nightmare!

Anyone Listening?

You may have ideas for simple fixes that would result in big payoffs for little investment, but you may ask "What's the use? Is anyone in a position to make the changes actually paying attention?" Before glossing over the idea that seemingly trivial improvements really can have a tremendous impact on any system, take a few minutes to watch Rory Sutherland's TED talk on the subject. The important points are toward the end, but it may just change the way you look at small stuff.

Pocket Protector Optional

A calculus professor once told me the only tools a real mathematician needs are a pen, a piece of paper the size of a postage stamp, and his or her brain. That may be the case if one is sitting at a desk, quietly contemplating the theoretical. Controlling an aircraft that is hurtling through the air at two miles per minute or more while simultaneously listening and talking on the radio? That endeavor has the unfortunate side effect of dropping everyone's IQ by several points, which is why pilots have adopted a few tools to help them deal with the flying world's challenging mix of theoretical and practical. One such tool is the E6B calculator.

For older, traditionalist pilots, the E6B is synonymous with "slide rule" and the mere mention of electronic E6B calculators and smartphone apps will get them on their soapbox in a heartbeat, praising the slide rule and preaching against the dangers of new-fangled electronic contraptions. Young upstart pilots, having likely never used a slide rule, may find this attachment a bit odd. Frankly I do too. But even as electronic E6Bs are becoming widespread, there is still a place for the old fashioned E6B slide rule.

Tried and True

The advantages of the E6B slide rule are many: It requires no batteries, it does a variety of calculations, and it is relatively lightweight. The "front" side of the E6B can accomplish a dizzying array of calculations and conversions: Ground speed, distance, time, fuel consumption, endurance, knots to nautical mile - provided the user has been properly initiated. The back side of the E6B, sometimes called the "wind side," is used to calculate wind correction angles and determine winds aloft.

The disadvantage of any slide rule is that in order to use it, the user must provide most of the problem-solving context. In a high-workload environment, user-supplied context is less than ideal. If you don't understand how to arrange the slide rule scales to solve your problem, you won't get very far. Even after you have a grasp on the slide rule basics, you must still use common sense to ensure that your answer is not off by an order of magnitude.

Some might argue that having to provide this sort of context and judgement is the very thing that ensures an understanding level of knowledge about the calculations be performed. That rings hollow to me because in flight what is most desirable is speed and accuracy. It's possible to go through the motions of slide rule calculations, mimicking what you've seen, arrive at an answer (correct or incorrect), and still not understand how you got there. Yet for kinesthetic and tactile learners, the E6B is an ideal tool, probably more so than an electronic calculator. Instructors who are unsure of their student's learning strengths can always have them take one of the many learning style inventory tests available on-line.

In spite of its apparent simplicity, the slide rule E6B is by no means foolproof. Tiny screws hold the main section together. With age, these screws can come loose and if that happens in flight, you'll have an interesting project on your hands. The wind side has a transparent plastic disk that is meant to be marked with a pencil, but that plastic can become cloudy, brittle, and riddled with marks. APR Industries has developed an innovative E6B design that uses a rotating windspeed cursor arm on the wind side so that you don't have to make any pencil marks. Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks?

If you are up for a challenge, grab the E6B of your choice and try tackling one of the Safety and Flight Evaluation Conference (SAFECON) Practice Exams. 

Flashy and New

There seems to be a endless supply of E6B apps out there for smart phones like the iPhone and the Android. At last count there were over 30 E6B apps at the iTunes store, some included as a feature inside an app. Perhaps creating E6B apps is a rite of passage, like writing your first "Hello world" program.

My favorite iPhone/iPad E6B app continues to be PFMA since it has a very simple, shallow menu structure. You provide the information you know and PFMA provides the missing information. No need to first locate the type of problem you're trying to solve in a complex and multi-layered menu structure. There are a few conversions that PFMA doesn't do and some obscure calculations that are missing, but it's easy to use in flight and a very good deal at $5.99.

For those of you wondering, that other calculator is an ancient HP-16C Computer Scientist that still works flawlessly. What can I say? I love RNP calculators and you never know when you might need to calculate the 2's compliment of a binary number.

Regardless which E6B app you choose, remember you won't be allowed to take your smartphone or other multi-purpose electronic device into an FAA knowledge test session.  Hmm ... Maybe there's life in that old E6B after all. Or purchase one of the dedicated E6B electronic calculators like the ones sold by Sporty's. I still have one of the Sporty's models, though the LCD display has long since given up the ghost.

Required Knowledge?

Like sailors before them, aeronautical navigators aboard airliners of yore used a sextant to plot their position. Thinking about this got me wanting to learn something about celestial navigation, even though it has been supplanted by satellite-based navigation. So in my spare time, I'll be working on building my own (very simple) sextant. When completed, I plan to try plotting my position in a few locations on the ground and compare the results to a handheld GPS or Google Maps on my iPhone. This project is for my own amusement and just because I find it interesting doesn't mean I'll soon be requiring my students to build their own sextants.

Ron wrote a cogent rejoinder to my post about digital versus paper charts, pointing out that most any pilot can blindly follow a magenta line into oblivion if they have lost (or perhaps never learned) basic flight planning and navigation skills. Many instructors might see that lack of skill and interpret it to mean that the pilot needs more training, but a deeper question seems to emerge: "What knowledge should the FAA (and, by extension, DPEs and CFIs) require pilots to demonstrate in the first place?" I believe the answer lies in thoughtfully combining the use of hand calculations, slide rule and electronic E6Bs, paper and digital charts, and paper navigation logs with computerized flight planning.

Tradition versus Progress

There's a undeniable pride student pilots feel once they have mastered basic calculations with an E6B. That's understandable because acquiring slide rule prowess is like learning a magic trick. Your friends are bound to be impressed, especially if the E6B you use is contained on the face of a flashy pilot watch. Pushing buttons on a calculator? Anyone can do that! For my part, I'll continue to teach my students how to use paper charts and a slide rule E6B, but I also won't discourage them from embracing new technology. I never tire of hearing students marvel "So pilots really used to fly this way?"