Entries by Bret Koebbe

Airplane flight tracking app review

While airline mobile apps are great for booking flights and storing boarding passes, they’re less than ideal for flight tracking. Here’s a look at various ways to track all the details for your next airline flight from your iPhone or iPad.

How to free up storage space on your iPad

It has happened to almost every pilot: you’re excited to download that new app or it’s time to download charts for your big cross country, but you get the dreaded “iPad Storage Full” message. Over time, as you download more apps and take more pictures, you can quickly fill up the storage space on your device and run into this alert. This means it’s time to start thinking about freeing up some space by deleting unused apps and media.

Our top 16 tips for flying with the iPad

Most pilots have a favorite tip or two when it comes to flying with the iPad, and we always learn something when we fly with another pilot. So we asked four Sporty’s pilots who regularly fly with the iPad to share their top tips. Read what they had to say, then add a comment with your own at the bottom.

Keep your head up with iPad audio alerts

The iPad is an engaging visual tool, but many pilots forget about its many audio uses. Especially for those pilots who worry about spending too much “heads-down” time with the iPad, it’s worth understanding how apps use audio to make flying more efficient and safe. Let’s look at some of the options, and how to set up an audio connection to your headset.

The top 20 apps for pilots – 2024 edition

There are thousands of apps that are useful for pilots, from flight training and weather briefings to calculators and games. With that in mind, compiling a list of the top apps may seem foolish, but once again we’re going to try—after all, a brand new iPad pilot needs to start somewhere. This list isn’t necessarily our 20 favorite apps, but rather the ones we see in use most often.

How to set up Stolen Device Protection in iOS 17.3

Apple added a new security feature called Stolen Device Protection for your iPhone in the most recent iOS 17.3 update. When this feature is enabled, some features and actions require additional security steps beyond entering the numeric passcode when your iPhone is away from familiar locations such as home or work.

Using your iPad on a Caribbean flying trip

Today you can confidently navigate the islands with everything you need right on your iPad, including geo-referenced VFR and IFR en route charts, airport and airspace databases, synthetic vision and even ADS-B weather in certain spots. Here we’re going to take a closer look at ForeFlight Mobile and Garmin Pilot, since they offer the most comprehensive resources for Caribbean-bound pilots.