Do Professional Pilots use ForeFlight? // #81 

Agree with where FF gets introduced. As a CFII, flying out of KFRG (very busy), I used it to support my traffic scan, but didn’t recommend it for students until they could do a X/C by pilotage, DR, and of course VOR/GPS. Once proficient, then I would introduce FF. Definitely for Instrument from start to finish.

Great video. ForeFlight is probably one of the most advanced tools to come along in recent years. So many functions and features. An absolute must have for any pilot.

My CFI didn’t let me use it inside the airplane. I learned how to use it on the ground while also learning how to make manual calculations alongside. I found myself cross checking my manual calculations with ForeFlight. Amazing program that has features that I discover every time I use it.

Hope to run into you guys soon at one of the west coast FBO’s. Stop by KSEE, say “hi”!

Speaking with a few of my friends that fly for the majors the companies provide/prefer the Jeppeson app but they all used ForeFlight until they were required to switch (and the company paid for it).

This is a question I’ve been wondering about. I’m going for my private pilot license, and I’m still working on trying to figure out how to perform the various calculations. However (and this may be due to my background in the trucking industry where I preferred a truck road atlas) I am more excited about having paper maps. I’m a Millennial, but I’m an old soul when it comes to wanting and making calculations with paper maps.

I've got a hybrid opinion of when foreflight should be introduced. For starter, I wholly agree that a student pilot should be able to pull out a chart, plot a route and fill out a nav log by hand and understand how to get the numbers and, more importantly, WHY they got those numbers. Those things are inherently important to make the light switch turn on in their minds. I also agree 100 percent that pilotage and ded reckoning should be mastered by the time they take a check ride. But, hear me out here... The worst possible scenarios in aviation often come when pilots are flying equipment they don't not yet have mastery of. Whether it's a new plane. A new panel. New avionics, or new autopilot systems. We hear all the time that a contributing factor to a crash is someone having more money than sense and buying a plane that has systems they don't know how to use. Well, if Jonny Newpilot gets his newly minted pilot cert and decides he's going to buy a benign, late 60s Cessna 150 with a six pack, he now has the option to strap on the cellular iPad he already owns and spend 150 bucks for a foreflight subscription. Problem is, he has a brand new pilots cert in his wallet and a brand new software he's never used before. Everyone he's ever talked to has told him that "once you get your ppl, you'll never sling a whiz wheel or plot a course again, just use foreflight". Well, now he's legal - and about to put his kids in a plane and take off for a destination that's 200 miles away using software that he knows nothing about and there's no one in the plane to show him how to integrate it safely into his flight planning. Does he know how to understand the hazard advisor? Does he know how to setup airplane profiles for his actual airplane? Does he know how to read traffic returns or be able to change the fuel consumption in the scratch pad on the fly?? Hell no. He fumbled for ten minutes just trying to figure out how to enter the destination. He doesn't know how to check the FBO information. Maybe no one's showed him how to look up (or turn on) notams. But off he goes. Into the wild blue. He called for a flight brief four hours ago and was told it looked good, but now a convective sigmet has popped up in the area he's flying through and in 20 minutes a storm is going to pop out of those towering cumulous clouds that also weren't forecasted. He doesn't know how to toggle the radar function so he doesn't see any of that and he's one of those guys that also doesn't like flight following because it makes him nervous and the same instructor who told him not to bother with learning foreflight also told him he doesn't need to bother with flight following. Do you see the issues here? If a pilot is planning on using it in his real world excursions after certification, you have an obligation to integrate it into their training. Not to cheat for cross country flying. But to learn how it operates and how it gets it numbers. You want a student to know what an oil temp gauge means, right? Well then they should know how their hardware works with foreflight too. Just my two cents on all of it. I paid for foreflight early on and fell in love with it quickly. I considered myself rather knowledgeable in all things aviation as a student pilot due to my career background working in aviation and even I had to really sift through a lot of information to truly get competent with foreflight. I can't imagine not being able to figure it out until you get out in the sky by yourself. There's a middle ground here for sure.

A good case for not depending on ForeFlight, is that it is (unlike GPS) it privately-owned by Boeing, and not run by the US government/FAA. For-profit corporations have a limited budget to throw at reliability, redundancy, and cybersecurity. If the servers go down, how would you like to explain to your airline or corporate employer why you're unable to fly? What if it fails mid-flight?

Standard Foreflight is so cheap I wish I would have gotten it well before my training started so I could familiarize myself with it, but if you do look up some videos or talk to someone that knows it. You won't figure it all out by just clicking around.

I’m surprised at efforts to reduce cost for fuel, landing, ramp and FBO fees for clients. I would have thought that matters of comfort, time and convenience would be much higher priorities for people with the means to charter a jet. Are your customers really that concerned with these extra costs? I’m making the jump from GA to corporate as soon as possible and I’m trying to build an understanding of the relationships involved.

Goddamn man let the other guy talk!

Foreflight is great. BUT, it is not available for the vast majority of people on their phone. You are outta luck if you are on an Android device.

I think the constant opinion against technological advancements is silly. How do you think you are flying at all?

I’m not sure why the other guy is there. The guy in the striped shirt won’t let him talk.

Do you still unfold a paper map you bought from 7/11 to find an address these days? Telling students to use a paper map, ruler, and E6B to navigate is denying the incredible technological era we live in. Here's a newsflash: in the next 20 years, pilot jobs will likely become obsolete because all commercial and military airplanes will be operated centrally, much like drones.

i think foreflight is cool, but makes pilots lazy.

FOR GOD’S sake GET TO THE POINT!! The first 6 minutes was wasted with banter vs addressing the question.