Flying entire life without AFD

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Adler

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My roommate yesterday admitted to us that he's never owned an AFD in his life. He's a 20 year old soon to be commercial pilot who's been flying since he was 16.

His justification is that normally he knows the airport's info because he's flown there, and if he hasn't he looks it up on airnav. Furthermore, he says any information he could possibly need is available on the sectional.

My other roommate and I proceeded to tell him that he is in violation of the FAR's for not making himself aware with all pertenant and available information, and that he should have his license revoked.

Seriously though, he does not believe us that he should be using an AFD, and I'm looking for some support.
 
Adler said:
My roommate yesterday admitted to us that he's never owned an AFD in his life. He's a 20 year old soon to be commercial pilot who's been flying since he was 16.

His justification is that normally he knows the airport's info because he's flown there, and if he hasn't he looks it up on airnav. Furthermore, he says any information he could possibly need is available on the sectional.

My other roommate and I proceeded to tell him that he is in violation of the FAR's for not making himself aware with all pertenant and available information, and that he should have his license revoked.

Seriously though, he does not believe us that he should be using an AFD, and I'm looking for some support.
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Not a fully wise course of action IMO, if he's going to fly anywhere besides his home airport he'll need to get something that can get more info than just a freq, an elevation and a runway alignment. You can get by with doing it his way, but I personally just like to have available stuff in the cockpit and not shortchange myself.

Tell the cheap bastard to shell out the few bucks for an AFD. :D
 
Adler said:
My roommate yesterday admitted to us that he's never owned an AFD in his life. He's a 20 year old soon to be commercial pilot who's been flying since he was 16.

His justification is that normally he knows the airport's info because he's flown there, and if he hasn't he looks it up on airnav. Furthermore, he says any information he could possibly need is available on the sectional.

My other roommate and I proceeded to tell him that he is in violation of the FAR's for not making himself aware with all pertenant and available information, and that he should have his license revoked.

Seriously though, he does not believe us that he should be using an AFD, and I'm looking for some support.
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What's an AFD...
 
Adler said:
My roommate yesterday admitted to us that he's never owned an AFD in his life. He's a 20 year old soon to be commercial pilot who's been flying since he was 16.

His justification is that normally he knows the airport's info because he's flown there, and if he hasn't he looks it up on airnav. Furthermore, he says any information he could possibly need is available on the sectional.

My other roommate and I proceeded to tell him that he is in violation of the FAR's for not making himself aware with all pertenant and available information, and that he should have his license revoked.

Seriously though, he does not believe us that he should be using an AFD, and I'm looking for some support.
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When I came over to the Airbus, I started flying into airports that I've never been to, or haven't been to in many years. We don't use an AFD. There are MANY other ways of making yourself aware of all pertinent and available information than using a government AFD.
 
Revoke his man card.

The rest of us had to buy at least one, so should he.

It is possible he can buy his man card back by spending all that money on beer for all of you, but he still has to buy one.
 
Adler said:
Seriously though, he does not believe us that he should be using an AFD, and I'm looking for some support.
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I just bought a Florida one when I realized the last one was over 3 years old.
I don't always use current plates on practice approaches either.

Honestly, you are never going to look at one in the air. Everything you need is on a sectional or the approach plates. Everything else you can get over the internet before hand. The interweb has more info and is generally faster.
 
I never owned one, until I was almost ready for my instrument ride. Since then, I haven't bought them per say (I get them digitally with approach charts). I can count on one hand the number of times I've used one in the air. They're great if you don't write stuff down prior to flight, but if you do good planning, they are only used once-in-a-while
 
Adler said:
My other roommate and I proceeded to tell him that he is in violation of the FAR's for not making himself aware with all pertenant and available information, and that he should have his license revoked.
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He HAS made himself aware of the pertinant information.

Just not by a method you agree with. If he does his research on the internet, vs a green book, nobody cares. I myself haven't owned one in years. airnav.com has everything the AFD has and more.
 
As long as he has all available information he's ok. Yes, the A/FD is the official source and can absolve you of the "crime" of not having all available information as long as you can prove you had AND used the information provided in the A/FD. But first you have to be accused of not having the information AFTER you do something that would suggest to the FAA that you didn't have it and should have had it. Then they have to find out you didn't have an A/FD and make a point that having one would somehow have prevented you from an infraction in the first place.

SO...(long inhale) I figure the easiest way to get in trouble here would be to not have the information contained or get inaccurate info somewhere else and cause a problem because of it. If you have all your info bases covered, the only other time I can see not having an A/FD being a problem is if you get ramped on a long cross-country. If you have the information written down and correct, you're good. If you don't have the information you need or you have a bunch of print-offs from non-approved sources, you might have some explaining to do. That being said, I would always encourage my students to have one available and use it. It's all about making a good, accurate, and relevant argument.
 
If he is only going to a couple of airports that he really does know then I could see getting by without one. Also you don't need to own it to familiarize yourself with all the info in it.

I think that reg is one of the overly broad and that allows the feds to apply it at their convenience. If you royally screw up somehow they can still throw that reg at you even if you have a current AFD in hand.

That all being said, just sack up and buy one.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
I never owned one, until I was almost ready for my instrument ride. Since then, I haven't bought them per say (I get them digitally with approach charts). I can count on one hand the number of times I've used one in the air. They're great if you don't write stuff down prior to flight, but if you do good planning, they are only used once-in-a-while
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I've had to use one for an IMC divert to an alternate (not the flight planned one) following an IFE in the WX that I couldn't break out of on approach. Unusual situation, but it did come in handy.

For preflight planning uses there are many other ways nowdays. :)
 
Falconvalley,
Good post except I don't think ramp checks look at your flight planning and whether you have an AFD onboard or not.
 
USMCmech said:
He HAS made himself aware of the pertinant information.

Just not by a method you agree with. If he does his research on the internet, vs a green book, nobody cares. I myself haven't owned one in years. airnav.com has everything the AFD has and more.
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But what if you have to divert? Is airnav always accurate?
 
Adler said:
My other roommate and I proceeded to tell him that he is in violation of the FAR's for not making himself aware with all pertenant and available information, and that he should have his license revoked.
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It isn't a violation of any regulation, really.
 
Adler said:
My other roommate and I proceeded to tell him that he is in violation of the FAR's for not making himself aware with all pertenant and available information, and that he should have his license revoked.

Seriously though, he does not believe us that he should be using an AFD, and I'm looking for some support.
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I think you should mind your own business. I can find all the info I need on a 10-9 page or the equivalent of that in gov. charts. Also, I somewhat agree with him, I can find everything I need to divert on a sectional, however I should have more than a sectional for my planned landing airport.
 
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