ForeFlight completely revolutionized the way pilots operate. Many of you reading this have been pilots for more than 17 years (ForeFlight was founded in 2007) and remember flight planning with paper charts, plotters and E6Bs. Many of you who have recently gotten your pilot’s license probably haven’t even touched a paper chart, though depending on how your flight examiner was, you may have had to learn how to flight plan on paper just for the checkride.
I learned both ways (I got my private pilot’s license in 2006 and my instrument in 2007). Filling out nav logs during private pilot training with a huge paper chart spread out on a table is something I definitely don’t miss. Especially a long cross country when I had to open up the big chart in the airplane, refolding it as I moved across the ground, all the while getting bumped around in the Cessna 152 that I was flying, sweating profusely in the heat, making sure the chart didn’t get blown into the back seat by the air vents.
The first digital chart I remember was actually on an original Amazon Kindle. When I was instructing in Houston in 2010, one of my students brought his giant Kindle in with a PDF approach plate on it. All of us instructors gathered around, oohing and aahing, imagining a flight without paper. Little did we know that ForeFlight had already thought of this, but wouldn’t really take off until the invention of the iPad that year.
ForeFlight is continually innovating, putting out updates and releases every month or two. I get to show customers new ForeFlight features almost every time I fly with them. ForeFlight is a great tool, but there is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to all the features (look for an Aviator’s Academy ForeFlight course before the end of 2024).
One neat feature that makes ForeFlight feel a little more personal is setting a customer Ownership Marker. What is the Ownship Marker, you ask? It’s the airplane symbol that shows up on the Map page. It is defaulted to a blue ForeFlight Airplane, a generic plane shape. Many pilots don’t know this, but you can customize the Ownship Marker to better fit your piloting personality. Are you an F16 type pilot or more of a canard or float plane (I’m an orange P3 Orion)? You can even customize the color of the symbol. Here’s how to do it.
- Tap More on the bottom right hand side of the ForeFlight App
- Tap Settings in the upper right hand corner of the More menu
3. Swipe down to the Map View section and Tap Ownship Marker (4th down under Map View)
4. Pick your color (at the top) and pick your aircraft
5. Go back to the Map page once you start flying and you’ll see your new personalized Ownship Marker.