I always have a paper VFR and Enroute chart in the cockpit, and of course I print the most important approach charts. In the Cirrus it is not such a factor because you also have all the approach charts on the MFD (or at least the ones you could afford to buy ….)
The way I fly – in the US, that is:
GNS 430 built-in
iPad running Foreflight
iPhone running ForeFlight and I sometimes even get live wx if I get 4g connectivity. Recently worked at FL100 all the way from L.A. to Paso Robles (to my surprise, I hasten to add)
If I really feel like doing some ‘classic’ navigation, there’s a second VOR and an ADF. I tend to use both for fun.
Frankly, I think that’s redundancy enough!
Being a bit old school, I still carry paper charts, but don’t really worry if they’re up to date. I’ll prob90 give up on them soon.
I can see both sides of the argument, and printing is a hassle for the way many people have organised their life (especially if they have gone down the Apple IOS route),
Huh?? I’ve been on Macs for over 20 years now, can’t remember printing ever beeing an issue.
What process do you use? Do you have an Airprint compatible printer, or some 3rd party printing solution?
Airprint works perfectly well. Many handling agents have airprint compatible printers now.
We have two iPads in the cockpit, one main, one spare unit. The spare unit can be the cheapest one that is still available on the market, a 16GB iPad 2 without G3 will do fine. They can be found new for less than 500Euros, second hand for something like 200. We are allowed to dispatch paperless when both are charged to 70% or more, otherwise we need to carry the required approach charts on paper. We email our briefing packages (flight plan, weather, wind charts notams) to our iPads before flight with a copy to our company mail address where it will be archived for the required period (3 months) to satisfy our authority. For private operations this would not even be required. Crews of our company have had several ramp checks all over Europe since we introduced paperless flying with no finding or complaint so far.
An iPad 2 / 16 GB is only € 379 now.
I just bough a used (but like new) iPad 4 WIFI+3G with 128 GB for € 560
For general VFR Flying I reckon the following would do me:
Garmin GTR 225 8.33 which I understand includes an intercom facility
Garmin TX 328 Mode S Transponder
iPad with GPS running Skydemon + Pooley Airfield data + Downloaded AIS Instrument plates.
I would still carry a Chart with route drawn on it and a PLOG for backup.
I would still carry a Chart with route drawn on it and a PLOG for backup.
Just out of curiosity, how often do you grab it in flight?
The biggest problem with a paperless cockpit is that you need a credible backup.
Indeed and I’m all for paper charts for the airports that I will most likely use (dst and alt). That is also one of the main issues with JeppFD.. as below
I use SKYDEMON on the iPad, plus JeppFD for approch charts if I need them, plus some weather and notam apps.From JeppFD I can print any chart without a problem, from SkyDemon I have not tried yet
JeppFD is a good product but the printing is useless (because of iOS limitations?). I want to print the charts in A5 format, 2→1 setup which is impossible with JeppFD.
Skydemon is the same thing with the plog, it’s a ridiculously large printout.
>Skydemon is the same thing with the plog, it’s a ridiculously large printout.
I agree, but you in the page setup of Internet Exlorer you can either reduce it to 70% or something, or do it in booklet format so it only appears on one side of the paper, leaving half free for writing stuff down. You get more formatting options if you print a PLOG from within the SkyDemon PC app, as opposed to the Ipad generated one sent to a PC via email.
I really like the A4 printouts of the Approach charts. I put them in a plastic folder and I actually SEE all the little numbers and all. (Lufthansa uses them in this size too, guess why!)
