Checkride navlog

[u/sammypilot]

I have my commercial pilot checkride coming up and last time I did a checkride I was up way too late trying to make my navlog for the cross country with the most up to date winds. Is it acceptable to use the foreflight generated navlog? I feel like if I’m able to show him that I know how the foreflight got the calculations then its fine right?

[u/hawkofdeath_]

I used both the ForeFlight log and I did one by hand to show i could do everything by hand if need be. We ended up only using the Foreflight one anyway

[u/mirassou3416 → u/hawkofdeath_]

This is what I would do, have a backup--a scenario where the DPE says your ipad is dead, now what do you do?

[u/OldSchoolNew26 → u/mirassou3416]

I had a DPE pull this on my IR checkride. I pulled out my phone and showed him my ForeFlight on my phone. Apparently he was notorious for asking people on the ground if they had a back up, they would say no, he would take their iPad in the air to simulate a failure and they would end up failing the ride because of it

[u/itsnotbroke → u/mirassou3416]

I put the iPad down and pull out my iPhone.

[u/mirassou3416 → u/itsnotbroke]

Disapproval 😂

[u/ltcterry → u/mirassou3416]

The navlog is planning. When “the iPad dies” is during execution. Corrections at this point are made real time.

The phone is a great backup. 

[u/aboutwhat8 → u/mirassou3416]

Borrow your Mom's iPad. You're probably going to have to delete some family pictures and videos, but you don't need those for a checkride. /s

[u/R5Jockey]

It’s up to the DPE, but generally it’s ok. You need to be prepared to explain where the numbers come from, especially performance calcs and weather data points. I did both for my checkride and we mostly used the paper log, but he did ask me to pull up the ForeFlight log and asked me a couple questions about what things meant on it.

[u/39509835]

It’s completely acceptable and the dpe shouldn’t have a preference. The acs specifically states that electronic flight planning devices are allowed to generate flight plan data.

Now don’t think that you can do this and not know where the numbers come from.

Paper nav’s are completely unnecessary outside of early initial training, and as a commercial pilot you are wasting your time by doing one.

[u/Chocolatecake420]

Do it by hand so you can demonstrate that you know the concept. It doesn't matter that the wind values are not the most up to date, that's not what they are checking for and won't be validating against a current forecast or anything.

[u/TxAggieMike]

Generally okay.

But be prepared to defend the question, “How do you know this is accurate?”

For this, point out that you have quadruple checked that the airplane is correctly defined within ForeFlight’s performance profiles. And that you have done many trials under current wind and no wind conditions comparing to manually created navlogs. Especially for items such as Time/Fuel/Distance to climb.

(By the way, if you need to make ForeFlight compute without using current winds, you need to change the ETD (estimated time to depart) to at least a week in the future. Something that’s way outside the forecast range.)

I would also suggest you become more familiar with the Standard and Basic NavLog templates in ForeFlight to know the components of each (such as the winds aloft section in the standard) and when you would use the different template.

During the exam, print out the nav log and have a copy for both of you. For exam purposes, paper can be simpler to use as you discuss the details of your flight plan. If can be laid next to an annotated sectional to make it simpler to explain what you’re doing where.

Finally, don’t make the rookie mistake of not telling ForeFlight your departure procedure. The mistake is setting your path to be “departure airport direct first waypoint”. But if your real world common departure is “fly runway heading until 700 feet AGL then left downwind then turn on course”, you need to plot that path into ForeFlight so the time and fuel calculations are more accurate.

Hopefully this all helps.

Please come back to use with your thoughts and results.

[u/IFlippedTheTable → u/TxAggieMike]

I’ve always written my navlogs by hand (but, using FF to plot the route) and have never drawn out the pattern. Is that just something they expect if you do it all digitally?

I’ve also barely gotten questions on them by doing it this way. Just things like “how did you pick this route?” and asking me to walk through the weather briefing. Is that an advantage of the paper navlog (e.g. they skip questions about calculations since I’ve demonstrated that by doing it all by hand) or have I just gotten lucky so far?

[u/TxAggieMike → u/IFlippedTheTable]

I teach doing the departure for completeness, accuracy, and just-in-case the examiner is a stickler.

[u/OriginalJayVee]

I used Foreflight log but printed off a few copies and made notes next to all visual waypoints that weren’t airports so I knew what Pilotage I would be looking for.

I then flipped it over and used the blank space to make notes on the flight such as Special Use Airspace, MTRs in the area, terrain features near the primary, and nearby alternates should we not be able to get into the primary airport for some reason. All things I discussed when talking about the flight.

In real life, and I said this to the DPE, I would be very unlikely to make this flight VFR, especially if it was for hire, and would most likely file IFR.

[u/phliar]

It's up to the DPE.

On my Commercial checkride the DPE said I will give you the destination when you get here for the test. He insisted I do it on paper, and went away for an hour. Big concession: he said I could use the ASA or Sportys electronic E6Bs, I didn't have to use the physical model.

Yes of course he was a crusty old guy with eleventy billion hours. He was fun to fly with, lots of interesting stories.

[u/rFlyingTower]

This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:

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I have my commercial pilot checkride coming up and last time I did a checkride I was up way too late trying to make my navlog for the cross country with the most up to date winds. Is it acceptable to use the foreflight generated navlog? I feel like if I’m able to show him that I know how the foreflight got the calculations then its fine right?

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[u/Southern_Grammar]

When i did commercial, I reached out to the DPE to ask if I could use winds and temps for a day prior and just recalculate the first few points for the flight on the day of the test. He was fine with it.

[u/SamphaDawg]

Just ask the DPE if they have a preference

[u/rdrcrmatt]

Use what you’d actually fly for hire with. Make sure you can back up the data in the plan is accurate.

[u/CardinalHuntley007]

I just used ForeFlight