PilotEdge Forums

Hi!
So I have decided that I'd like to challenge myself with VFR (and eventually IFR) a little more. I have decided to drive over to Van Nuys airport and purchase what a pilot would normally have to use in a plane, and use that to complete various VFR flights.

To make it more interesting only myself, I am not allowing myself to use the internet/iPad/etc. (So no ForeFlight, for planning, etc.) Only paper sectional, etc.

Can someone help me out and give me a list of what is required/normally in a plane, to give me a shopping list?

Thanks!

Brett

I'm normally using set of paper FAA publications in PE, including among others
- VFR sectional + VFR LA/San Diego Terminal Area Chart
- IFR Low & High altitude airways charts - H3/H4 +L3+L4+L7+L8
- IFR Terminal Procedures Socal + Nevada etc
- Airport Facility Directory

You can order them at FAA website. I'm still amazed that they offer a free shipping to Europe (although it takes 2-3 weeks...)

Thanks Piotr!

I will pick these up this weekend, and I should be set!

Much appreciated for the quick response.

Brett

Great question Brett. This is relevant to my interests as well, as someone who's only done a few intro flights in real life. I've switched to all real paper VFR charts while flying on PE and find it much more fun and engaging than swapping over to my browser to peek at Skyvector and the PE online map throughout a flight. Much better training for real world flying I would think. I do use a 2nd laptop or my iphone for AFDs though.

Should we have an E6B as well?

Interestingly enough, I think you'll find that many real world pilots (including myself) don't use paper charts. I have them in my flight bag, but I haven't gotten them out in a long time. The reason? My tablet. It has all those charts in a much more usable and accessible fashion. I don't have a GPS so I can't use my tablet as a moving map, but it works wonderfully as a sectional/en-route/AFD/TPP.

+1 Reece. Same boat here except I don't carry paper charts for anything other than my home area at this point. The reason I bought the Ipad was that I was tired of spending $25-30 in charts for the long trips, every single time. There would be times when I'd only buy the IFR charts for a 1000nm trip and then encounter cases where I'd prefer to go VFR but didn't feel comfortable doing so without the sectional charts, so I'd spend more time planning and going IFR instead.

Also, from a cockpit management standpoint, the flexibility and size of a small, compact tablet slaughters the inconvenience of trying to work with folded charts, to say nothing of all the EXTRA information you get from an EFB (restaurants, hotel, taxi, FBO phone numbers, comments from other users, fuel prices/availability, the list goes on for ever).

So when I start my PPL testing, is the FAA going to let me use my iPad? I'm trying to master everything I can in PE before dropping the money to start my 40hrs for my PPL, so I want to be practicing the skills I'm using when I switch over to actual flying.

I basically just want to practice anything I'm going to be tested on.

Brett

Your flight test is going to cover the departure airport (the freqs for which you'll have already memorized, along with the taxiway layouts, most likely), the XC destination (which you wont get to), and the diversion airport which won't be far away. I'd be proficient with paper charts but use the IPad. You almost certainly won't get dinged for it, although I suspect at some point you might lose the ability to use it for a while, probably long enough to provide than you can use a paper chart.

That's based on reading the first few accounts of check rides when IPads were new and shiny. At this point, they're practically standard issue, I wonder how much things have changed.

Don't train to the test, that's my advice. That will take care of itself if you have the fundamentals down. If you want to make sure you're not being a GPS junkie, just turn off location services on your IPad (I don't even have a GPS on mine, so that's easy!) and use it JUST as an EFB if you want the convenience of electronic charts without becoming a child of the magenta line.

Then, what you should do is ignore everything you read on the internet and ask your instructor

Hi Guys,

My two cents...! First of all, I agree with Keith. I took my PPL check ride in 1995 (BTW it was on my 21st birthday). This was long before autopilot, iPads, or even GPS being standard in small GA training aircraft. (I did my 49 hours in a C150 which had one VOR that sometimes worked). I'd throw a sectional & TAC in your bag, but until your cross country starts, you will not use it much during flight. In fact, other than during my oral to show I knew how to plan an XC flight, I do not think I used it much on my check-ride. I had to demonstrate stalls, flying a heading, keeping altitude, slow flight, soft field, etc., etc., etc..... No chart needed for that stuff! You'll learn quickly to fly to your practice area, do your maneuvers or how fly to nearby airports without even looking at a chart during the flight. Clearly you want it with you in easy reach, folded to the right spot, etc., but I'd doubt if you use it much early on or even on the check ride. You’re going to learn to fly that airplane. For cross country, that's a different story. I think they still teach dead reckoning which is using landmarks and calculating course correcting for wind, magnetic deviation, etc. I remember thinking I might be lost on one of my first cross country and looking for the water tower of a passing to confirm where I thought I was. Again, I think using an iPad is completely reasonable for this task.

I love Foreflight and use it every time I fly. I have a Stratus receiver for weather and better GPS signal. The portability of the setup is important since I fly several different planes. The iPad makes situational awareness so much better when operating around busy airspace like Dallas/Fort Worth. I’ve found using the iPad helps me spend less time with my head down messing with charts, etc. and more time looking outside the plane for traffic and scanning the instruments (i.e. FLYING THE PLANE). I will mention that I ALWAYS carry back up iPad external battery or iPad 12V charger, charts, plates, etc. specific to my trip and keep them within reach. I normally just print what I need for a given flight from the FAA website or thedigitalpilot.com

Like Keith said, now disregard all this stuff and do what your CFI tells you! Ha…

BTW – Keep us up to speed on your progress once you start. We need more GA pilots out there! Good Luck!

Thanks for all the great feedback on this thread!

I am using ForeFlight currently in PE with the moving map feature turned off in X-Plane. So I guess I will continue to do that. (which is fine as it saves me a drive!)

Brett