What do you do when you're iPad battery goes dead

What do you do when your iPad battery dies

  • Pull the red handle (Cirrus Only)

    Votes: 7 10.9%

  • Pray and/or die

    Votes: 5 7.8%

  • Pull out the paper chart

    Votes: 24 37.5%

  • Declare an emergency

    Votes: 8 12.5%

  • What's an iPad

    Votes: 20 31.3%
  • Total voters
    64
Missing answer:
-- Recharge it

If you were on approach (without paper) and need it, you have a spare 0:45 worth of gas, so go into a holding pattern for 1/2 hour while it's sucking electrons from the alternator, then try again
 
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You're IPad battery? I would hate to be an iPad battery.
 
RoscoeT said:
You're IPad battery? I would hate to be an iPad battery.
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Nice one. I see that apostrophe there where it doesn't belong. It looks lonely without one of its friends "a" or "an" nearby. :goofy:
 
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oldShar said:
Missing answer:
-- Recharge it

If you were on approach (without paper) and need it, you have a spare 0:45 worth of gas, so go into a holding pattern for 1/2 hour while it's sucking electrons from the alternator, then try again
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Had that happen to a student. I didn't give him my iPad because I wanted to see what he would do. He calmly went missed, called up center, asked for a hold over the IAF and proceeded to ask for the textual to write down.

I'm sitting there trying to not turn gay and kiss the dude. I was very impressed.
 
denverpilot said:
I always forget there's polls here. Don't even see them on Tapatalk. (Nor do I care about them in the slightest. I'm here for conversations, not polls.)
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Sure, except that a poll is often a clue to what the person who started the tread had in mind. I can certainly answer the question seriously.

My iPad battery doesn't just "go dead" out of nowhere in flight. I try to manage my electronic chart source just as I managed my paper source in the past.

Management to me means a few things.
  1. Start a flying day fully charged. In the past I really did try to make sure I had current charts and I had them in my flight bag. Also fresh batteries in my ANR headset*. Charging my iPad overnight the night before a flight isn't any more difficult.
  2. In flight, I look at that little number up in the corner. You know, the one that tells me how much charge is left. Just like I do when monitoring aircraft instruments and systems.
  3. I dim the screen or turn the screen off entirely when I don't actively need it. That's pretty much what I did with paper charts when I used them - put them aside when I wasn't actively using them in flight. In the case of my EFB, that also conserves battery.
  4. My flight bag contains an adapter so I can plug it in if the aircraft has a receptacle. Funny I used to do that with my old Garmin 396 as it (and its battery) aged.
  5. I also have back-up battery that will give me at least an hour extended use (actually a lot more than that). I figure if that's good enough for a fully certified glass panel, it's good enough for me. The monitoring in #2 means I don't wait until it's dead before I do something about it since it's not quite as simple as throwing one switch on the panel.

[*I keep looking for the posts that tell people they should not use ANR because their batteries might go dead :D]
 
I have a full panel with an IFR GPS and charts in the panel. Sometimes I don't even pull the iPAD out.

As far as the "battery" in the iPAD? I plug it into the cigarette lighter. Oh and yes, I do have the foreflight on the phone too. Rarely use that for anything other than checking weather/filing flight plans on the ground though.
 
Sundancer said:
I'd revert to the panel mount GPS as primary, if IFR. VFR I wouldn't much care.

Yeah, I know. . .don't care.

Best choice for me is pray and/or die. . .
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"Revert to the panel mount GPS"??? That's my primary anyway if IFR, and when VFR it helps keep me on track but primary then is still out the window.

It continues to amaze me that people use tablets strapped here and there for primary navigation when they have a certified GPS sitting there in their panel. Kind of like the thread I stumbled into a few years ago where people were discussing using their automotive GPS to navigate in the air . . . :yikes:

Any tablet is just for displaying sectionals and charts so you don't have to worry about folding them in the air. The cute little airplane pictured on them is only advisory, which is fancy legal-speak for "not accurate." We've all read here about people busting airspace because their tablet showed them being outside, when they really weren't. No thank you.
 
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midlifeflyer said:
[*]In flight, I look at that little number up in the corner. You know, the one that tells me how much charge is left. Just like I do when monitoring aircraft instruments and systems.
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Actually you may have hit on something there -- some people may not realize there's a way to turn on a numerical battery percentage indicator.

It's off by default, and I always turn that on in the settings the very first day on any new iOS device. It's always on so I forget it's a non-default setting.
 
denverpilot said:
Actually you may have hit on something there -- some people may not realize there's a way to turn on a numerical battery percentage indicator.

It's off by default, and I always turn that on in the settings the very first day on any new iOS device. It's always on so I forget it's a non-default setting.
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I've learned something new. I had no idea it wasn't the default setting. I guess I set it almost 5 years ago on my first iPad and it transferred over as I upgraded.
 
Hank S said:
"Revert to the panel mount GPS"??? That's my primary anyway if IFR, and when VFR it helps keep me on track but primary then is still out the window.

It continues to amaze me that people use tablets strapped here and there for primary navigation when they have a certified GPS sitting there in their panel. Kind of like the thread I stumbled into a few years ago where people were discussing using their automotive GPS to navigate in the air . . . :yikes:

Any tablet is just for displaying sectionals and charts so you don't have to worry about folding them in the air. The cute little airplane pictured on them is only advisory, which is fancy legal-speak for "not accurate." We've all read here about people busting airspace because their tablet showed them being outside, when they really weren't. No thank you.
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Not quite.

The cute little airplane pictured on them is only advisory, which is a non-so-fancy shorthand for "not officially approved by the FAA for the purpose of primary navigation under instrument flight rules, regardless of how accurate it might actually be."

VFR, I'm personally not going to try to skirt an airspace I am not supposed to be in close enough to be an issue, even with a fully-certified panel mount unit. What amazes me is a little different that what amazes you. I'm amazed at the number of people who blame tablets for poor pilot decisions.
 
The answer to the question really depends on your panel equipment and if you're operating VFR or IFR.

As I said, I finally bought a tablet with Avare the other day. By no means is it a critical piece of equipment for my VFR flying. For VFR, it provides an easy to read depiction of a georeferenced aircraft on a sectional compared to my panel 480. For a XC, it'll be a nice to have but for a local flight, I don't care about operating gadgetry. I look out the window.

If I ever get back into IFR, then it'll come in handy...for charts and such.
 
At work we're required to carry around an external battery pack. It's the shape and size of a Klondike Bar. We've got outlets on the left and right side of the flight deck though, so the battery pack is more of a backup if our outlets are on MEL or otherwise not working.
 
Hank S said:
"Revert to the panel mount GPS"??? That's my primary anyway if IFR, and when VFR it helps keep me on track but primary then is still out the window.

It continues to amaze me that people use tablets strapped here and there for primary navigation when they have a certified GPS sitting there in their panel. Kind of like the thread I stumbled into a few years ago where people were discussing using their automotive GPS to navigate in the air . . . :yikes:

Any tablet is just for displaying sectionals and charts so you don't have to worry about folding them in the air. The cute little airplane pictured on them is only advisory, which is fancy legal-speak for "not accurate." We've all read here about people busting airspace because their tablet showed them being outside, when they really weren't. No thank you.
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Each to his own; I find the FF UI to be quicker and cleaner to use. If IFR, and I get a change from ATC, I update iPad/FF first, get everything else settled in, then make the change in the panel mount last. I do glance at the panel mount, probably on freq changes, since it's a G-530 and so also a comm box, and I'd notice if the two boxes disagreed.

The panel mount becomes primary for me in the approach phase, since it scales so well, and is easier to look at, as the CDI is mounted right next to it, and that has the vertical guidance. And the missed is visible etc. Then I usually have the approach plate up on the iPad, since I don't carry paper plates.
 
Sundancer said:
Each to his own; I find the FF UI to be quicker and cleaner to use. If IFR, and I get a change from ATC, I update iPad/FF first, get everything else settled in, then make the change in the panel mount last. I do glance at the panel mount, probably on freq changes, since it's a G-530 and so also a comm box, and I'd notice if the two boxes disagreed.
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That's really no different than Hank S's comment that
Hank S said:
Any tablet is just for displaying sectionals and charts so you don't have to worry about folding them in the air.
Click to expand...
I would probably do the same with paper charts. Look for it on the chart for situational awareness and maybe even to start a turn in that direction before entering it into the panel.

I actually do it both ways. Sometimes I look for the intersection on my tablet first. Other times I just enter it into the panel first. Pretty simple either way.
 
rolivi said:
What to do when this critical piece of equipment fails?
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Since when is an iPad a 'critical piece of equipment'!?? Sure it's nice, but if it's 'critical' to your flying, please take up another hobby
 
rolivi said:
What to do when this critical piece of equipment fails?
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The terrain database in my 530 corrupted itself today while I was in the mountains so I had to look out the window.
 
JCranford said:
Since when is an iPad a 'critical piece of equipment'!?? Sure it's nice, but if it's 'critical' to your flying, please take up another hobby
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As I mentioned above, my tablet is critical to me, since I have a paperless cockpit. And I don't consider flying a "hobby", btw, any more than driving.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Who cares about TSO'd? Besides, it might pass through but it will be noisy :goofy:
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I've turned off my ANR or forgotten it in flight. It's not THAT bad.

It's certainly worse in headsets that have poor passive ratings and the number of those has gone up significantly in the last decade or more.

But it's not instantaneously deafening and one can certainly understand ATC Comm just fine with the ANR turned off in most aircraft.
 
On any flight away from home I'm going to have a battery pack to recharge the ipad and a cigarette lighter charger. Of course if that all fails and the ipad is just dead I have my iphone with all necessary apps on it.

But then I suppose the ipad and iphone might both go dead somehow. Well I still am not very excited as the garmin 430 in my panel is my primary nav anyway. But then suppose that also fails... admittedly my paper charts are expired but I have them and they probably haven't moved most of the stuff on the ground, I've got a VOR receiver and an ADF yet. Or if the radio still works I can call center and ask for vectors.

Or if all that fails, climb as high as I can, look for an airport, land there, and try to figure out what the heck caused that many different devices and systems to all fail on one flight.
 
Like I said... Get a backup battery charger. They are reasonably cheap.
 
midlifeflyer said:
That's really no different than Hank S's comment that

I would probably do the same with paper charts. Look for it on the chart for situational awareness and maybe even to start a turn in that direction before entering it into the panel.

I actually do it both ways. Sometimes I look for the intersection on my tablet first. Other times I just enter it into the panel first. Pretty simple either way.
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What I was saying is I refer primarily to FF/iPad for navigation in the enroute phase. I'm not using the G-530 in that realm of flight, except for an occasional source to confirm FF is making sense.
 
Kritchlow said:
Like I said... Get a backup battery charger. They are reasonably cheap.
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Like I said, I carry two of those, plus two tablets plugged into ship's power, plus two portable handheld radios for ASR/PAR if worse comes to worst. It's hard for a single engine driver to add redundancy in the engine department, but in electronics and navigation it's cheap and easy nowadays, so not doing it is like fuel in the truck, runway behind, altitude above, etc.
 
denverpilot said:
I've turned off my ANR or forgotten it in flight. It's not THAT bad.

It's certainly worse in headsets that have poor passive ratings and the number of those has gone up significantly in the last decade or more.

But it's not instantaneously deafening and one can certainly understand ATC Comm just fine with the ANR turned off in most aircraft.
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In the spirit if the thread my comment was a bit tongue in cheek. I fly with a Telex Stratus. Noise attenuation as good as any other passive or active headset.
 
Sundancer said:
What I was saying is I refer primarily to FF/iPad for navigation in the enroute phase. I'm not using the G-530 in that realm of flight, except for an occasional source to confirm FF is making sense.
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Oh ok. Well, to each his own.

IFR, I don't find it to be too much trouble to put my flight plan in the certified box and shut my iPad screen off until I want to reference charts or weather.

Funny. I was on a flight with a friend the other day. En route, he glanced over at my iPad and said the glare was so bad he couldn't see the map. He was quite surprised when I told him I couldn't see it either because it was off.
 
Plug it into this:

clock.jpg
 
You carry an iPad when you fly?

That takes all the fun out of it.


:stirpot:
 
"What do you do when your iPad battery dies"

I put it on the nightstand and go to sleep.
 
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