There are really two answers to this question.
In most cases, Basic Plus is the way to go. Pro and Performance have a lot of stuff that isn't necessarily useful to a new pilot, and will make it harder to learn.
However...
If you have an instructor who is good with ForeFlight (including Performance Plus), there is one thing that is potentially helpful to you as a student in that top plan, and that is the 3D views. It lets you look around an airport environment in 3D, to see what it will look from your course on a cross country flight for example. It will let you do a 3D Review where it plays back your Track Logs in real time or accelerated, including aircraft attitude if you are flying with a Garmin Connext equipped aircraft with AHRS or one of the portable Stratus or Sentry devices with AHRS, which can be a good tool for debriefing a lesson with your instructor. It will also do a 3D Preview of a planned flight so you can see what it'll look like beforehand.
Another option, separate from Performance Plus, is
CloudAhoy which is owned by ForeFlight and provides a debriefing tool for use with your instructor that works with ForeFlight. Alternatively, you can send ForeFlight track logs to FlySto and get some similar functionality for reviewing flights.
So, probably Basic Plus, but talk with your instructor about the 3D Preview and the various methods of debriefing, and you may find you want the Performance Version, a CloudAhoy subscription, or both.
As a student? Learn how to do it without an EFB.
While it is important to understand the concepts - Both sectional symbology, E6B related knowledge, pilotage and dead reckoning, etc - Any instructor that does not teach their students to use an EFB in this day and age is flat-out negligent. EFBs have *VASTLY* improved the ease and safety of flying GA airplanes since I started flying mumbletysomething years ago, and it is important to teach students how to use them as well as their potential limitations and pitfalls, just like everything else in aviation.
I've also had my iPad overheat and shutdown inflight. IMHO, a student should definitely have a sectional as backup.
ForeFlight, at least, now will warn you about your iPad getting hot *BEFORE* it shuts down so that you can mitigate the heat buildup. I haven't had an iPad shutdown in several years.
Indeed, I believe a student should not only use but be required to be proficient at using an EFB.
This.
Non-aviation example - arithmetic is now taught using calculators in elementary schools.
I hear this from a lot of people who seem to have heard about it online or from Fox News or whatever.
I can tell you, as a parent, with an actual kid in an actual elementary school right now, he has yet to use a calculator, and they are FAR better at teaching the fundamentals of math than they ever were when I was in school. My older son just finished first grade and he can do basic division in his head. They don't talk about "transitive" or "associative" properties, but they teach them at the same time they teach everything else, and the kids are writing "fact families" instead of plain answers. For example, a problem might say "Add 2+6 and write the fact family." The answer isn't just "8" it's 2+6 = 8, 6+2 = 8, 8-6 = 2, 8-2 = 6.
As someone who is really good at math yet struggled with math in school at times because of how it was taught, I am REALLY happy with the way they're teaching math now. And like I said, no calculators. And they've made it to basic division in first freaking grade. My kid is going to be WAY better set up for success than I was.
One thing I like about a sectional is easy access to the Legend. Not all EFBs integrate the legend, and FF probably does it best, but it’s clunky.
Maybe so, but you can get the entire Aeronautical Chart User's Guide in the Documents section, which includes a bunch of the more obscure stuff that isn't even in the legend. I didn't even know that existed when I was in primary flight training, much less have a copy on board.
en.wikipedia.org
