Finding Alternates With An EFB App - Is This Really So Hard?

Electronic flight bag (EFB) apps running on a tablet computer, as depicted above, have greatly increased the typical pilots SA (situational awareness). As this articles main text relates, some pilots havent 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.)

Editorial Staff

Wednesday, May 20, 2015 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Electronic Flight Bags (EFBs) significantly enhance pilot situational awareness but can be challenging for some pilots to use effectively for planning alternate airports, despite paper charts being impractical.
The article provides a systematic, step-by-step checklist for pilots to use EFB apps when determining alternate airports, especially when destination weather conditions necessitate one.
This process emphasizes starting with a complete weather briefing, calculating required fuel reserves (including a 45-minute buffer), using the EFB map to find suitable alternate airports with appropriate approaches and forecast weather, and iteratively adjusting the plan to ensure legal fuel minimums.

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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.