Entries by Bret Koebbe

PilotWorkshops courses now available in training app

Sporty’s Pilot Training app now includes a collection of new courses and digital pilot manuals from the team at PilotWorkshops. These new training products are designed to take your VFR and IFR flying skills to the next level and maximize the utility of your pilot certificate.

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.

Quiz: ForeFlight badges, labels and alerts

ForeFlight is much more than just an airport directory and moving map on your iPad. It’s smart, always analyzing each piece of data you input and calling out errors or abnormalities you may have overlooked. Our latest quiz takes a look at some of these to help you better understand what is going on under the hood.

App troubleshooting: how to close, delete and restart

Everyone knows how to open an app on the iPad–just tap the icon and it’s off to the races. But what about closing apps–do you know the difference between sleeping an app, shutting down an app and deleting an app? It’s an important distinction that comes into play when an app starts misbehaving.

How to share your location from an iPhone via satellite

We’re entering an exciting new era of communications thanks to recent developments in satellite connectivity. Here we’ll take a look at the satellite connectivity feature included with iPhone 14 and 15 models and how you can share your location on a cross-country flight from any altitude.