About Flight Kneeboard
An electronic flight bag that runs in a browser and on iPhone and iPad — charts, weather, procedures and flight planning, from official sources.
What it is
Flight Kneeboard puts the things a pilot checks before and during a flight in one place: FAA sectionals and IFR enroute charts, approach plates that georeference onto the moving map, observations and forecasts, airport information, procedures, and a flight planner that produces a nav log and a printable briefing package.
The iOS app adds what a browser cannot do — your own position on the chart, terrain shading against your altitude, a glide ring, synthetic vision, Sim Connect for flying with a simulator, and downloading charts and data to the device so they work without a signal. It is free on the App Store, for iPhone and iPad.
Where the data comes from
| Data | Source | Cycle |
|---|---|---|
| VFR and IFR charts | FAA | 56 days |
| Approach plates, airport diagrams, Chart Supplement | FAA d-TPP | 28 days |
| Airports, runways, frequencies, navaids, fixes, airways | FAA NASR | 28 days |
| Approach and departure procedure coding | FAA CIFP | 28 days |
| Obstacles | FAA DOF | Daily |
| METARs, TAFs, PIREPs, winds aloft, advisories | NOAA / NWS | Continuous |
| Radar | NOAA nowCOAST (MRMS mosaic) | Continuous |
| Satellite imagery | NASA GIBS | Continuous |
| Terrain elevation | SRTM / NASADEM / 3DEP | Static |
Charts and aeronautical data follow the published FAA cycles, and the app shows the currency of each product so you can see at a glance what is in date. Weather refreshes continuously.
What you can read here
Alongside the app there are 75 free pages covering the weather, every maneuver in the airman standards, the airplane's systems, airspace, navigation and the regulations — written against the FAA handbooks and standards, and taught where possible on the weather and the charts that are current right now rather than on tidy examples. Nothing is gated, there is nothing to enrol in, and each page is written to be read on its own. Start wherever your question is.
What it is not
It is an advisory aid for situational awareness. It is not certified for navigation, and it must not be used as a primary means of navigation, or for terrain or traffic avoidance. If traffic is ever shown, it is only what a connected receiver happened to hear — it will never show all of it, and it is not a collision-avoidance system.
Carry current official charts, and fly under the rules that apply to you.
Privacy
There are no accounts, no analytics and no tracking. The iOS app contains no advertising at all. The website may carry advertising on wider screens to help cover its costs. The full detail is in the privacy policy.
Who makes it
Flight Kneeboard is built and run by Chip Tang, a commercial pilot. It began as a tool to solve a personal problem — wanting a chart, the weather and the plate in one place without paying a subscription for it — and grew from there.
The instructional material is largely the work of Jacqualynn Watson, CFII and aviation advisor to the project. The maneuvers, technical subjects, preflight and teaching pages are adapted from the curriculum she wrote and teaches from, and she is credited as their author; the weather pages and the how-to guides are Chip's, with Jacqualynn advising. Every page names who wrote it.
The written material is checked against the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook, the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge and the Airman Certification Standards. It is still written by people, and the regulations move — where a page cites a rule, the current 14 CFR is the authority, not this site.
Feedback, corrections and bug reports are genuinely welcome, particularly if you spot data that looks wrong. Get in touch.