Electronic flight bag (EFB) apps running on a tablet computer, as depicted above, have greatly increased the typical pilot’s SA (situational awareness). As this article’s main text relates, some pilots haven’t figured out how to use their EFBs to answer the many questions necessary to legally and safely pick alternate airports. They supposedly prefer paper charts and a plotter. (Really. Have you guys seen the size and number of books of Aeronav charts required for 48-state coverage lately? The proliferation of LPV, LNAV and similar approaches has swollen them in size, weight and number.)
While there’s no question an EFB app running on a tablet in our cockpit has brought enhanced SA along for the ride, there’s also no question they can be somewhat inscrutable. And since each app is different, we can’t give you specific instructions on how to do this part of your flight planning. But we can suggest the following as a checklist of sorts for anyone to use when it comes to navigating an EFB app and choosing an alternate.
