Many of us in the club grew up in aviation during the days of the E6B and paper charts. I can recall sitting in a blazing hot room one August plotting courses for my student cross countries back in the late 80’s. If you are like me, the process was way too cumbersome for life after I had my ticket. But, Foreflight has changed that for us and provides the pilot with a wealth of information from weather to NOTAMS to airspace and beyond.
Every flight whether a long cross country of a few turns in the pattern requires the pilot to meet preflight planning requirements. Now FAR 91.103 is insanely vague on details only stating that each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight. If you were to find yourself on the wrong side of a violation, you might be hard-pressed to say, “I’ve made that flight to Katama a hundred times. I know the route” and still avoid a negative outcome. You will be much safer and ahead of any trip by taking 3-5 minutes to plan it. Did you expect that VIP airspace? Were you aware a front was moving through with an abrupt change in winds? A few minutes will make you a better pilot and keep your passengers more secure.
The video attached shows how you can plan an IFR trip from Marshfield to Martha’s Vineyard in less than 5 minutes. This includes selecting a likely route to be approved by ATC, the approach, and full nav logs with aircraft specific performance data. Even if you are a VFR only pilot, you should be asking the question as to why this should not be used on each flight especially if you are flying 4CA and the iPad is staring at you. This brief video is a demonstration and is not intended as a Foreflight training tool.
Many more videos can be found at https://foreflight.com/support/video-library/.
I wish you safe flying and please do not hesitate to reach out to me with any questions or comments.
Steve Craffey, CFI