Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

What do you write on?

I suspect most pilots write on a piece of paper (on a kneeboard) but some scribble onto an Ipad or some such. Does that work? From what I have seen, tablet writing is OK for a very small amount of text.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Pen and paper on my kneeboard. As much as I like my technology, I don’t plan on changing that. I always have at least two pens, and a backup pencil. I still use a printed plog, really for gross error checks and timekeeping and then a blank sheet of paper for notes, ATIS, clearances, etc.

EGTT, The London FIR

iPad. Works well if you know what you want to write down and keep it to the key items. Like all these things it is a matter of practice.

EGTK Oxford

iPad for me as well, unless I am instructing, when I use paper so I can pass debriefing notes to the student.

But a lot of what we used to write down, frequencies and levels in particular, now goes straight into the avionics, so, provided you use SOPs, such as typing the frequency in as you read it back, and entering the cleared level and subscale setting before you do anything else, it is self documenting.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Tried the iPad but – so far, at least – prefer pen and paper. Agree, however, also with @Timothy, I usually input the frequencies during the read-back.

172driver wrote:

I usually input the frequencies during the read-back.

But then if you misheard the frequency you will be entering the wrong frequency – seems to happen a lot.

EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands

Garmin Pilot is offering a nice scratch pad quite handy to use. But I still keep a paper with pre-formatted entries for the approach briefing.

Peter_Mundy wrote:

But then if you misheard the frequency you will be entering the wrong frequency – seems to happen a lot.

… even if the use of paper doesn’t fix this.

Last Edited by Flyamax at 22 Sep 07:02
France

I now use and iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. Best of both worlds for me

Peter_Mundy wrote:

But then if you misheard the frequency you will be entering the wrong frequency – seems to happen a lot.

As @Flyamax says: if you mishear it, you’ll write it down wrong – same outcome.

I’ve tried writing on my iPad(s) several times – but I prefer paper.

52 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top