Gary Moore

I am getting back into flying after a 20-year hiatus.  I am delighted with the tech advancements I'm seeing, especially because I embrace tech eagerly and feel it can enhance both safety and situational awareness for GA pilots (as long as one does not neglect VOR navigation in favour of what seems "easier").  Until I started to re-train, I had never flown with a GPS, moving map or autopilot.

I have a few fairly expensive decisions to make about adopting ForeFlight, so I hope that some of the more experienced folks here can chime in re. the following:

-  The aircraft I'll be renting are GPS-equipped but only one of the two C172/Gs has a moving map.  My reasoning, therefore, is that an iPad with ForeFlight (and yolk clamp) will be a very desirable piece of kit considering I won't always have access to a moving map.

-  I have looked on the ForeFlight site for minimum, and recommended, specs for iPads intended to run their app in-flight but the information available is surprisingly incomplete.  My plan is to get an iPad Mini, which the site says will run the app post-second generation.  Can anyone please clarify however, whether I need both WiFi and Cellular options for the iPad and what might be the optimal choice re. storage capacity.

-  Is ForeFlight's 3-D visualisation app a paid add-on or does it come with the subscription?  My instructor showed it to me yesterday and I was really impressed with the capacity it offers to familiarise oneself with visual approaches to unfamiliar airports.

- My instructor tells me to be careful because here in southern California, iPads can overheat in flight in the summer.  Does anyone have a strategy to deal with this?

I would appreciate your opinions. As I said, they will be particularly valuable to me as this is a fairly big-dollar decision to make; the "right" iPad is likely to cost $600+.  Thanks in anticipation.

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I am getting back into flying after a 20-year hiatus.  I am delighted with the tech advancements I'm seeing, especially because I embrace tech eagerly and feel it can enhance both safety and situational awareness for GA pilots (as long as one does not neglect VOR navigation in favour of what seems "easier").  Until I started to re-train, I had never flown with a GPS, moving map or autopilot.

I have a few fairly expensive decisions to make about adopting ForeFlight, so I hope ... more