Most student pilots now arrive at the airport with a tablet. Some instructors treat it as a crutch to be kept in the flight bag until after the checkride. Others let it run the whole lesson. Neither gets the most out of it, because the most valuable thing an EFB does in training is not on the screen during the flight. It is what the flight leaves behind.
A logbook entry says 1.3 hours and six landings. A recorded track says where each of those six circuits went: how far out the base turn was, whether the downwind held altitude, where the wheels came down, and whether the second half of the lesson looked like the first. That turns a debrief from memory into evidence.
This guide covers how to bring an EFB into flight training without letting it take over the cockpit, and then how the data it records can make every debrief sharper. It shows how the Flight Suite EFB and Flight Suite HQ do this for students, instructors and flight schools.
See the Flight Suite EFB → FAA charts, Fly mode, flight recording, and a debrief of every pattern, approach and steep turn you fly. For flight schools, the same debrief appears in the lesson record: see how training works in Flight Suite HQ.
Can a student pilot use an EFB during training?
Yes. Under Part 91, a portable tablet can stand in for paper charts and publications, provided the data is current and the pilot in command is satisfied the device is suitable for the flight. 14 CFR 91.21 leaves the decision about portable electronic devices to the operator, which for most training flights is the pilot in command, and the FAA's guidance on Class 1 and Class 2 EFBs for Part 91 operators (AC 91-78) describes how a tablet can replace paper aboard. Many schools add their own rules on top: a backup source of charts, a mount rather than a lap, and a charged battery at dispatch.
The practical test does not change because of it. The Private Pilot ACS still includes pilotage and dead reckoning, and an examiner can take the tablet away to see whether you can still find your way. The EFB supplements the skill. It does not replace it, and a good training program makes sure the student can fly the lesson without it.
When should a student start using an EFB?
In stages, the way any other piece of equipment is introduced:
- On the ground first. Planning, weather, NOTAMs, airspace and the airport diagram. This is where an EFB saves the most time and costs nothing in situational awareness. Our guide to planning a VFR cross-country walks through what that involves.
- Recording from the first lesson. Pressing Record before taxi asks nothing of the student in flight, and every lesson after that has a track to debrief.
- In flight, as a cross-check. Once the student can hold altitude, fly the pattern and navigate by the chart and the window, the tablet becomes a second opinion: is that the field, is that the Class D boundary, how far to the next checkpoint.
- Full use, with a failure plan. By the cross-country phase the student should be able to use the EFB fluently and lose it without drama. A tablet in direct sun can overheat and shut down, and a battery runs out. Covering the screen for part of a lesson is as useful a drill as covering an instrument.
What is the main risk of an EFB in the training cockpit?
Head-down time. A student hunting through menus is not looking for traffic, not flying the airplane, and not learning to see the world outside. The answer is part technique and part design.
The technique: set the EFB up before engine start, brief what it will be used for in each phase of the lesson, and treat it as something you glance at, never something you work on in the air. The instructor should be able to say "eyes outside" and see the tablet ignored.
The design matters as much. The Flight Suite EFB was built around a simple rule for anything used in flight: easy to reach without hunting for it, and easy to use in bumpy air.
- Fly mode is one tap. It turns the planning screen into a full-screen chart that follows the airplane, with a flight strip along the edge: groundspeed, altitude, track, the next waypoint and the distance to the destination.
- Controls used in flight are made for turbulence. Each one takes a touch at least 60 pixels each way, even where it is drawn smaller on a phone, and every one has a word on it, not just an icon, so it is found by reading rather than by remembering.
- Spoken callouts keep eyes outside. The EFB can say when controlled or special use airspace is ahead, call out runways on the ground, and warn of terrain and towers near the airplane, so the student hears the cue instead of having to look for it.
- A timer and a scratchpad sit one tap from the flight strip, for the ATIS, a clearance or a frequency.
All of it is advisory. The EFB is not a navigation source, and the student is still expected to know where they are without it.
What can an EFB record that a logbook cannot?
The flight itself. When the student or instructor presses Record, the Flight Suite EFB keeps the airplane's position, altitude, groundspeed and track for the whole flight, from the device's own GPS or from a connected ADS-B receiver. In the pattern, and in climbs and descents, it keeps a point every second, and it keeps the accuracy the GPS reported with every point, so the debrief can say how sure it is about each measurement. If the device lost its fix for a while, the gap can be filled from ADS-B data for the same aircraft.
After the flight, the track is saved to the student's account and opens on the website or in the app. It replays on the chart, with a profile graph below it showing altitude, the terrain underneath and groundspeed over time. Scrub to any moment and the airplane is where it was.
What does the debrief actually measure?
From that track, Flight Suite measures the maneuvers it can measure honestly with GPS, and holds each one against a published standard where one exists. Where nothing published says what right looks like, it shows the number without a verdict and leaves the judgment to the instructor.
Graded against a published standard:
- Steep turns, altitude: held within 100 ft of the entry altitude, as the ACS asks.
- Steep turns, roll-out: on the entry heading within 10°, as the ACS asks.
- Stabilized approach: from 300 ft above the touchdown down to the flare, aligned within 10° of the final course, sinking no more than 1,000 fpm, and groundspeed within 10 kt. Shown approach by approach.
- Pattern side: the FAA's published side for that runway, or the standard left pattern where none is published.
- Pattern altitude on downwind: the published pattern altitude, within the ACS's 100 ft.
- Crosswind turn: within 300 ft of pattern altitude, as AC 90-66C recommends.
- Final: no more than 100 ft of overshoot past the extended centerline.
- Touchdown: in the first third of the runway and over the centerline, measured on the runway itself, with its plus-or-minus.
Shown for the instructor to judge, because technique varies and a power-off approach is steep by design: the glidepath, the base and final distances, the downwind spacing and the rollout.
Estimated, never graded: the airspeed on final, worked out from groundspeed and the reported wind (more on that below).
Each circuit is measured in the runway's own frame, from the FAA's runway data, including a displaced threshold where there is one. The debrief also finds go-arounds, and when the same runway was used several times it says how consistent the circuits were: how far apart the touchdowns landed, and how much the glidepath varied.
Just as important is what it does not claim. GPS gives groundspeed, not airspeed, so the steep-turn airspeed is not scored, and bank is shown as an estimate. The airspeed on final is worked out from the METAR's wind, the field's temperature and the altimeter setting, with the crosswind and headwind components and the gust allowance the Airplane Flying Handbook gives (half the gust factor). It says plainly that it errs a few knots low, and it is a prompt for a question, not a finding. A touchdown that falls inside the GPS's own uncertainty is never called wrong.
How do instructors use the debrief?
At a flight school running Flight Suite HQ, the debrief appears inside the lesson record. When the instructor logs the lesson, the recorded flight is already there: each steep turn against the ACS tolerances, each approach and the downwind before it, the landings, and the night and cross-country time the track shows.
Where the track measured the traffic pattern or normal landings and every one was within tolerance, Flight Suite offers the lesson item's target grade, with the reason written next to it. It never offers a failing grade. Anything out of tolerance is shown in red, and the instructor decides what it earned. Nothing is set until the instructor presses Use.
That changes the conversation after the flight. Instead of "your patterns were a bit wide," the instructor can open the third circuit, show the base turn 1.4 nm out against a downwind that drifted 150 ft high, and replay it with the student. The student leaves with one specific thing to fix next time, and the next lesson's track shows whether it was fixed.
Across the whole school, Safety › Flight trends reads every recorded flight the same way: unstable approaches, firm arrivals and bank past 60°, by aircraft, by pilot and by month, each one a link to the flight's replay. It grades no one and stops nothing. It shows a chief instructor where to look before a pattern becomes a habit.
During a first solo or a solo cross-country, the instructor can follow the flight live. The student shares a Follow my flight link, and the instructor sees the airplane on a map from the ground.
Can I get feedback from an instructor outside my school?
Yes. A pilot with their own Flight Suite EFB account can share any recorded flight with any instructor through a link that works for 30 days. Text it, share it, copy it, or have Flight Suite email it. The instructor needs no account. They open the replay and grade each steep turn and approach the track shows as Satisfactory, Needs work or Unsatisfactory, with a note. They can also pin comments to points on the flight and write a summary.
The feedback comes back to the pilot's flight page. The link can be stopped at any time. This is useful for a renter working with a freelance CFI, a student between schools, or a pilot who wants a second opinion before a flight review.
Can I see my flight on video with the data?
In the Flight Suite app, a cockpit video can be recorded during the flight and played back with the flight's data drawn over it: altitude, vertical speed, groundspeed, track and a small map of where the airplane is. It can be exported with that overlay and shared. On the website, a video recorded with any camera can be added to the flight's page, lined up with the track, and exported with the same overlay from Chrome.
Watching a landing with the sink rate ticking in the corner teaches more than any description of it.
How does the data build toward the checkride?
Every recorded flight adds to a record that is useful well beyond one debrief. The Flight Suite logbook keeps the totals, an experience report, a helper for the FAA Form 8710-1 numbers, and progress toward the aeronautical experience a rating requires under Part 61 or Part 141. At a school, the lesson records, grades and endorsements sit with the student's training record, which the student can see too.
For a school that answers to an examiner or an FAA inspector, that is a training record backed by what was actually flown. Flight Suite HQ is built for Part 61 flight schools and Part 141 flight schools alike.
A debrief routine that works
- Brief the objective before the flight, in one sentence: "Today, the downwind at 1,000 ft and the touchdown in the first third."
- Press Record before taxi. It is on the chart, in the app and on the website.
- Fly the lesson with the tablet as a cross-check, not a task.
- Open the flight as soon as you are on the ground, while it is fresh. Replay the part the objective was about.
- Read the circuits against the standard. Start with what was within tolerance, then the one that was not.
- Pick one thing to change next time, and write it in the lesson.
- Compare the next lesson's track with this one. Progress is easier to believe when you can see it.
Bringing it together
An EFB used carelessly pulls a student's eyes into the cockpit. Used well, it does the opposite: it keeps the in-flight workload low and turns every lesson into a record the instructor and the student can learn from. The Flight Suite EFB records the flight and measures it against the same standards the checkride uses. Flight Suite HQ puts that debrief in the lesson record, in the school's safety trends, and in front of any instructor the pilot chooses.
Start with the Flight Suite EFB → For pilots and students: charts, Fly mode, recording and the debrief. Running a flight school? Book a demo of Flight Suite HQ and see the debrief inside the lesson record.
The Flight Suite EFB is an advisory tool and not an approved navigation source. Measurements come from GPS and are only as accurate as the position the device reports; the debrief offers suggestions for an instructor to confirm, and it is not a substitute for flight instruction or for the FAA's standards.
