Student Pilot Question: Should I ban the iPad from the cockpit during PPL training?

Gem3 said:
I seem to recall that the 80286 was called the PC AT. The XT had an 8086 chip. Dating myself here….
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We’re all dating ourselves in this tangent. Heck, although I had a little experience with APL in college, my first real computer was an XT clone, so I’m feeling like a baby in this subgroup.

Although, in the plus side, I laugh when youngsters think we’re helpless with tech. When they’re not asking me for help with it, that is.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Although, in the plus side, I laugh when youngsters think we’re helpless with tech. When they’re not asking me for help with it, that is.
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Heh, I spent many young hours on my 286 with 1MB RAM trying to load as much stuff into high memory as I could (got to get as close to 640KB low mem as possible!). When I hear about kids being "tech savvy" and "digital natives" I kind of roll my eyes. Constantly using your phone doesn't make you a tech expert any more than driving a lot makes you an automotive engineer.
 
AvNavCom said:
Heh, I spent many young hours on my 286 with 1MB RAM trying to load as much stuff into high memory as I could
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Haha, good ol' days playing with the loadhigh command and reshuffling things into autoexec.bat to gain the last few KB of 640K RAM.
 
AV8R_87 said:
Haha, good ol' days playing with the loadhigh command and reshuffling things into autoexec.bat to gain the last few KB of 640K RAM.
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Buying the combo board that added 1.5MB of RAM plus an extra serial and parallel port. Populating that board with individual DIP memory chips to round out the base memory from 512 to 614K. Then using some shareware program to actually increase the base memory to 720K or so and creating a virtual drive in extended memory for the CAD program's swapfile so it could access it faster. Oh yeah, and make sure you have a math coprocessor...
 
Dana said:
Oh yeah, and make sure you have a math coprocessor...
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Math coprocessor! I had forgotten about that!

I can't tell you how fancy I felt when I upgraded to a 486 DX4 100 with a 14.4 modem. The raw power and speed was incredible. Ah, back when the technological horizon was indescribably bright and a cyberpunk future seemed inevitable. I'm a little disappointed that we just ended up with Tik Tok, Instagram, and deepfakes. :P
 
No need for students to use iPads unless they are doing their Solo XC. All other times, they need to focus on flying and doing what they are told. I would assume you are monitoring traffic on your iPad every flight
 
BeechSundowner said:
No need for students to use iPads unless they are doing their Solo XC. All other times, they need to focus on flying and doing what they are told. I would assume you are monitoring traffic on your iPad every flight
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That seems like a bad idea. How will they know how to use the EFB if they've never used it. Then have the first time be a solo flight. Learn how to use it and more importantly, how not to use it as part of training once you're doing something besides T&G's
 
I see club students so hamstrung by being "forced" to use an E6B and paper Navlog, they really don't spend the time learning about ded reckoning so much as fighting the E6B.

There's no FAA requirement to use an E6B, virtually no one uses them in flight, and it's not critical to the idea that your distance and fuel consumption is calculable from a few variables. It's just *A* calculator, it's not *the* calculator.

They'd be FAR better off choosing paper or plastic early on, and learning the way they expect to fly in the future instead of being steered by a CFI heavy handedly.
(train how you intend to fly)

Likewise, I know at least one person, now that he's a PPL, that mimics the CFI habit of just running off their iphone. He does have a tablet in his bag, in the backseat, but I feel like he's inadvertently been taught that some flights don't deserve the same level of readiness for the unexpected that others do.

Do you have a sectional easily available at all times? Digital or paper, do not care, but don't get into the habit of making it hard to get to. Ugh.
 
bentmettle said:
I see club students so hamstrung by being "forced" to use an E6B and paper Navlog, they really don't spend the time learning about ded reckoning so much as fighting the E6B.
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You remind me of something I used to see all the time before EFBs came along.

The student pilot cross country typically involved creating checkpoints very close together. Like every 10± miles. But the student was not told three things. (1) Checkpoint's primary purpose is to determine time/fuel use. (2) Not getting lost is only a secondary reason (we are, after all, supposed to know where we are all the time). (3) We are bunching them up - checking 5 times on a 45 minute flight when you have 5 hours of fuel so you have practice doing it.

Missing that information, the student would pass the checkride, come to their own conclusion that all those checkpoints were nothing but busy work and thatplanning flights was not necessary.

At least EFBs and flight planning software before it, helped with that part.
 
Albany Tom said:
Except for the art department, apples didn't exist anywhere in business that I know of, just in schools.
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I don’t think that’s true. VisiCalc was available for Apple IIs and I saw one at company I did some consulting for in probably 1980. I was using their IBM 5100 to do forecasting. It was a desktop machine that ran BASIC and APL but whatever I used to run regressions is not stored in my permanent memory.
 
JScarry said:
I don’t think that’s true. VisiCalc was available for Apple IIs and I saw one at company I did some consulting for in probably 1980. I was using their IBM 5100 to do forecasting. It was a desktop machine that ran BASIC and APL but whatever I used to run regressions is not stored in my permanent memory.
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Well, it's true that *I* wasn't aware of anyone doing it. :) I'm trying to be more careful with my words here. But in all seriousness, I do remember the II's, I think they had velcro holding the top lid on, which I found as weird. My go to then was TRS-80, partly because the displays were better for text and they had a business machine that eventually had a hard drive. I do remember VisiCalc... It's been decades since then, and except for better ways to do graphs Excel isn't all that much better.

That was all as a teenager, and although I've done fine I realize that if I knew then what I know now I'd have my own island somewhere. Of course that's probably true of anyone that's been in IT that long...only a handful of people were smart enough to get islands.
 
alessandrocotrufo said:
Hi everyone, happy to be here. My name is Alessandro Cotrufo and I’m a student pilot based in Simi Valley, CA, just starting my PPL journey.

I wanted to get the community's take on a debate I’ve been having with my instructor. I’m naturally more on the tech-savvy side along with most people in my age range, and I’ve already set myself up with a subscription to ForeFlight and an iPad mount.

However, I’ve heard conflicting advice from older pilots at the hangar who say I should ban the iPad from the cockpit entirely until after I get my license to ensure I actually learn dead reckoning and pilotage properly.

Is relying on the "magenta line" really that detrimental to early learning, or is that just an old-school mentality? I want to build safe habits for my future flying in California airspace, but I also don't want to ignore modern tools that increase situational awareness and would generally make me a better pilot.

What did you all do during your primary training? Did you stick to 100% paper charts, or did you mix in the tech?
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There's no single correct answer to this. I favor leaning in a particular direction, not as dogma, but as a results-based inclination I've gained from many years of flight instructing and conducting practical tests.

Let's try to agree, as a starting point, that student pilots ("learners") must learn the fundamental building blocks of what is required to become a safe and proficient pilot, step by step, from simple to complex, most known to least known, in that sequence. Hopefully there won't be any pushback on that.

I strongly believe Pilotage and Dead Reckoning are skills which are critical - foundational to safe execution of PIC duties while flying an aircraft at any level, be it a Piper Archer or a Boeing 787. This requires more than a rote level understanding of how to do it - it must be a core ability understood innately. How to apply wind correction, variation, deviation, understand the performance of the aircraft to derive a power setting, IAS/TAS/GS, fuel flow - it should all gel to build a framework that the pilot can rely on in the future when using his/her SA to work their way through a navigation problem (maybe even being lost.)

How to learn these skills? The iPad doesn't make it easier for the flight instructor to imbue the fundamentals, in my opinion. It comes down to simple learning paths and repetition - as children we master basic arithmetic, division, multiplication tables, etc. before using a calculator. The modern EFB flight bag (ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, etc.) is an amazing tool and it would be a little odd not to see it appear on the flight deck at some point in the student pilot's development, but when? I would posit, not initially, and when it does appear, it should be in support of manual flight plan creation and to give the pilot a bit of a safety buffer on his/her initial forays into the required solo cross countries. Learn the "math" first, use the "calculator" later to verify.

It is acceptable to provide a computer-generated flight plan for a practical test. One potential pitfall to using this option is that the applicant must then demonstrate mastery of the skill, requiring them to work backwards and show they understand the fundamentals. In my personal experience, it's much for straightforward for them to do so when they've manually built their own flight plan and run all the calculations themselves. However, they're free to present a flight plan in the manner they choose.

It's quite easy to learn the tool (ForeFlight, etc.) later on - it simply automates many of the steps required of the learner in the nascent stages of learning. It can also be distracting early on as the learner is presented with the challenge of learning a complex app; being a ForeFlight master really shouldn't be the goal with 30-40 hours of flight time under your belt.

This is just my personal opinion based on my observations - there are many ways to approach this issue.
 
bentmettle said:
I see club students so hamstrung by being "forced" to use an E6B and paper Navlog, they really don't spend the time learning about ded reckoning so much as fighting the E6B.

There's no FAA requirement to use an E6B, virtually no one uses them in flight, and it's not critical to the idea that your distance and fuel consumption is calculable from a few variables. It's just *A* calculator, it's not *the* calculator.

They'd be FAR better off choosing paper or plastic early on, and learning the way they expect to fly in the future instead of being steered by a CFI heavy handedly.
(train how you intend to fly)

Likewise, I know at least one person, now that he's a PPL, that mimics the CFI habit of just running off their iphone. He does have a tablet in his bag, in the backseat, but I feel like he's inadvertently been taught that some flights don't deserve the same level of readiness for the unexpected that others do.

Do you have a sectional easily available at all times? Digital or paper, do not care, but don't get into the habit of making it hard to get to. Ugh.
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To each his own, but I require the student to prepare a comprehensive paper Navlog for the practical test. Done correctly, this organizes data for the test. This nav log includes data obtained from the POH including RPM setting, W&B, takeoff and landing performance. It also includes pressure and density altitude, alternates, weather for departure, enroute, destination and alternates, runway distances, pattern altitudes, frequencies for VORs, ATC, FSS, and CTAF, fuel reserves, ect.

When an examiner starts asking about these items, the work is completed and organized.
 
Clip4 said:
To each his own, but I require the student to prepare a comprehensive paper Navlog for the practical test. Done correctly, this organizes data for the test. This nav log includes data obtained from the POH including RPM setting, W&B, takeoff and landing performance. It also includes pressure and density altitude, alternates, weather for departure, enroute, destination and alternates, runway distances, pattern altitudes, frequencies for VORs, ATC, FSS, and CTAF, fuel reserves, ect.

When an examiner starts asking about these items, the work is completed and organized.
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I don't want to misunderstand what you are saying - is this also the process you'd expect your learner pilots continue using after the checkride? Or do you have other typical process you teach as the core "musts" for each flight?
 
Yes, in the modern world every pilot needs to be familiar with electronic wonders. I've got two comments as a pilot, and not related to being an instructor;

1. Looking out the windows. ADS-B and electronic traffic devices do not show birds, balloons, drones etc. As years go on, less and less pilots (in my experience) are looking outside assuming electronics will prevent collisions. The PIC's eyes need to be on a swivel. Also, some electronics are cluttering up the view outside windows mounted with cameras, iPads, etc.

2, Failures of electronics do happen - Ground / Satellite based failures, leaky windshields, heat, circuitry, power issues could affect navigation or communications. Backup iPads are great, but also block vision depending upon where they're mounted.

IMO new pilots need to have a good understanding of both dead-reckoning and efficient use of whatever electronics they are currently flying, while also simultaneously looking out the windows!
 
bentmettle said:
I don't want to misunderstand what you are saying - is this also the process you'd expect your learner pilots continue using after the checkride? Or do you have other typical process you teach as the core "musts" for each flight?
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§ 91.103 Preflight action.
Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight. And must include 5 items (runway lengths, fuel requirements, alternates, WX and ATC delays). In my view, a flight is when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight from a ramp and ends on a ramp. Familiar means the PIC can safely use the information concerning that flight from experience or recall without much effort. It assumes you have done some research or review.

We are supposed to train pilots for the safe and efficient operation of the aircraft. A method to aid in the safe and efficient operation having the information the pilot has to be familiar organized for easy reference.


A comprehensive Navlog is basically just a checklist that has operations that need to be completed preflight for safe /efficient operation from the departure ramp to the destination ramp. “Musts” are minimums and hopefully we aren’t training pilots to only do the minimum.
 
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I started out in a G1000 172, and I am glad I switched to an old 172 with noting but VOR’s. Not being able to reference a magenta line or ownship icon forced me to learn to use landmarks and my local airspace. It is really not that difficult to do, but if you’re always depending on the screen to get you back home from the practice area, then you’re missing out on letting your brain grow the situational awareness muscle.

One way to split the difference is to disable the ownship on your tablet, while the CFI uses their own iPad for traffic/ADSB and whatever else. That way, as a crew you’d be benefitting from the benefits of modern technology while allowing yourself to develop skills without over-dependence.
 
bentmettle said:
I don't want to misunderstand what you are saying - is this also the process you'd expect your learner pilots continue using after the checkride? Or do you have other typical process you teach as the core "musts" for each flight?
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I think that's an excellent question. No problem if the CFI explains its purpose - to know how and to have additional tools in the cockpit in case of an avionics failure. Those are important skills. The problem comes in when this is not explained. I know that before EFBs, many pilots thought this was the way to do flight planning, with checkpoints every 10 miles on a 40 minute flight with 5 hours worth of fuel. Even as a student pilot, I thought that the head-down time doing a bunch of time/speed/distance calculations every 5 minutes actually detracted from VFR pilotage. Once on their own, those same pilots realized that part was silly, nothing but make-work with no practical purpose. Many went to the opposite extreme of not planning flights at all. When I became a CFI, I promised myself I would explain what and why we were doing checkpoints much closer than necessary - for practice - and describe what I thought was a good system for flight planning.
 
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Use every tool you can, anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool trying to prove a point.
 
I think the real question is could you do a diversion properly if the DPE said "your ipad is dead" scenario. ACS requires basic calculations from ETE, fuel, heading. Could you do that without the ipad (ie. foreflight)? What about plotting the course on a paper sectional? I guess if you could do the paper method without issue, certainly bring ipad.
 
If you ban it would that be like a sign in the cockpit stating the ban, maybe a laminated sign with iPad and cross through it and your name and signature on the bottom?

Look, it’s a tool, use it for what it is, don’t use it as a crutch, it’s pretty simple
 
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