Entries by Bret Koebbe

Best flight tracking apps

While airline mobile apps are great for booking flights and accessing 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.

Optimize your iPad’s location services setting options

The iPad’s software settings allow you to customize which apps can use your location to improve the user experience. While this is essential for moving map navigation apps in the airplane, you’ll find that it’s not necessarily important for all types of apps to be able to access this data. Here we’ll show you how to customize these settings to improve your iPad’s battery life.

Quiz: Your iPad just quit on you in flight, now what?

The iPad is one of the most stable computing platforms available today, but it is still susceptible to external factors that can cause it to become unresponsive in flight. Test your iPad troubleshooting knowledge in our latest quiz and learn how to avoid potential pitfalls when using the iPad in the cockpit.

Garmin Pilot adds new color themes and ETD calculator

The latest update to Garmin Pilot is now available in the App Store and adds a few new convenience features to improve your experience with the app. This includes a new light color scheme, the ability to flight plan based on pre-determined arrival time, and improvements to the Database Concierge wireless update capability.

How to create your own iPad proficiency review

As the old saying goes, “train like you fly, fly like you train.” If you fly with an iPad, don’t hide it during your training flights. Better to make it an integral part of your proficiency program, whether you’re on your own or with an instructor, including what to do if it fails. Here’s a suggested list of topics to cover.

ForeFlight adds new ADS-B traffic safety features

The latest ForeFlight update adds new “Aircraft on Runway Alerts” to better get your attention if an airplane is on the runway while you’re on final approach, or if an airplane is on short final to a runway you’re occupying. The update also adds ADS-traffic breadcrumbs, day/night overlay on maps and baro-corrected pressure altitude.