The FAA Blinked

The battle has raged a long time between useful, inexpensive, portable, non-certified devices and panel-mount certified instrumentation. In practice, weve long used non-certified portables for navigation and we havent been falling out of sky in swarms.

Editorial Staff

Thursday, July 31, 2014 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Historically, non-certified portable devices have been widely used for supplementary aviation functions despite legal limitations, creating a tension with certified panel-mount systems.
The regulatory landscape is shifting, with the FAA now permitting non-certified portables to send *control data* (like flight plans) to certified avionics, a departure from previous read-only restrictions.
Pioneering technology, such as Aspen's Connected Gateway, demonstrates this change by allowing iPads to transfer flight data to certified panels with pilot confirmation, promising expanded capabilities and cost efficiency for pilots.

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The battle has raged a long time between useful, inexpensive, portable, non-certified devices and panel-mount certified instrumentation. In practice, we’ve long used non-certified portables for navigation and we haven’t been falling out of sky in swarms.

Officially, our non-certified portables are for advisory and supplementary use only. In reality, though, if you don’t have a GPS in your panel allowing you to fly direct for hundreds of miles, you can still use a portable GPS. To be legal, you get a heading and “direct when able.” It’s an official wink and a nod, and it works.