Maybe we’re too busy focusing on the forest and the trees that the dirt making up the foundation of the arbors is ignored. Or perhaps it’s the elephant in the room no one discusses. Instructors don’t teach it because they don’t understand the opaque system themselves—can’t teach something you don’t know. Whatever the cause, many pilots have a poor understanding of how aeronautical information travels through the system and how charts are updated.
Why fend off paper cuts every few weeks or get the notice to update your data every time you fire up your electronic flight bag? Why are Jepps updated every two weeks while government charts update at four weeks? What about databases? Why do some charts have effective dates and other don’t?
