On an iPhone

An iPhone runs the same three screens as an iPad (Panel, Avionics, FlightBook), laid out for a phone held upright. It’s a good companion beside a larger screen: two instruments, a flight display, or a controller in your hand.

Note

A phone stays upright: it doesn’t turn sideways. A foldable phone unfolded, or any screen 600 points wide or more both ways, gets the iPad’s layout and turns like an iPad.

The menu

The phone uses the whole screen. The menu is a status bar beside the notch or the Dynamic Island: the time and one menu key on the left (its icon shows the screen you’re on), the connection’s dot on the right, and a lock while the screen is locked.

Touch the menu key for its list:

• Panel, Avionics, FlightBook;
• this screen’s own keys: Customize on the panel; PFD, Map and Remote in Avionics;
• the lights: Day, Night, Auto;
• Lock the screen, and Settings.

Three fingers on the screen lock and unlock it, as on the iPad.

The panel

Each page holds two instruments, one above the other, or one standing instrument that takes the whole page: the Evolution 1000-style PFD, the MD302-style standby in portrait, the C172’s standing trim wheel. Swipe left and right between pages; the dots show where you are (they hide while locked). The picker offers the instruments that fit a single cell or stand two tall; the wide radios, navigators and displays are in Avionics instead.

Customize has the page’s own keys: + Page, move the page earlier or later, remove it, and Done. Key mapping and the ready-made pages are in Settings, under External hardware and Pages.

Avionics

• PFD: the flight display, laid out for a phone upright: the autopilot’s modes at the top, the attitude across the whole width with the tapes on its edges, the compass rose at the bottom. There’s no engine strip and no inset map (use the Engine app and the Map). The radio bar has two lines with large type: COM 1, its standby and NAV 1; the transponder, COM 2 and Audio. Touch an active frequency to swap it, the standby to type one.
• Map: the navigator, with the map larger than on an iPad.
• Remote: see below.

On a phone the NEXT’s windows (keypads, the Apps, the Map Menu, the PFD’s windows) slide up from the bottom, the screen’s width, with keys at least 44 points tall.

The FlightBook

The FlightBook fills the screen: its sections in a bar across the top (NOTES, CRAFT, ATIS, BRIEF, NAV LOG, W&B, CHECKS, CHARTS, FLIGHT, CALC), the page under it the screen’s width, and the pen, the eraser and the other tools under the page, within reach of your thumb.

The Remote

The Remote turns the iPhone into a touch controller for the navigator, laid out like a cockpit touch controller in the NEXT’s style. It has no map: keep the map or the flight display on the iPad, and work the flight plan from the phone in your hand. It’s in Avionics → Remote, on a phone only.

At the top is the radio bar:

• COM1 and COM2: the active frequency over the standby. Touch the active one to swap, the standby to type a frequency. MIC picks the COM you transmit on, MON listens to the other one.
• XPDR1: IDENT, the mode, the code and the flight ID. Touch the code to set it.
• Audio & Radios, and Messages: the alerts and reminders, with a count while some are unread.

At the bottom, the quick-access bar opens a page at a time:

• Flight Plan: the active flight plan, a large key per leg with its altitude, desired track and distance, and the totals. Add Origin, Add Destination, Add Waypoint or Route (a waypoint or an airway). Touch a leg for Direct-To, Activate Leg, Hold, Insert Before/After, Waypoint Info, Move Up/Down and Remove. The origin’s and destination’s Options, PROC and Taxi Route keys are on their headers; Stored Flight Plans, the cruise altitude and the alternate are under the page’s title.
• PROC: departures, arrivals and approaches: the airport, the runway, the procedure (with a preview of its path) and its Transition. Load, or Load and Activate for an approach.
• Direct-To: a waypoint (typed, or from the flight plan, nearest or recent), its bearing and distance, the course to it, Activate.
• Nearest: the nearest airports and more, as a list, with a Taxi Route for each airport.
• Checklist: the aircraft’s checklists.
• Init: Initialization, in four tabs:
  • Setup: the flight ID; Import FPL (from SimBrief, from the simulator, or a stored plan); the ETD; the flight plan, the alternate and the cruise altitude.
  • Weight & Balance: the FlightBook’s W&B, with keys and a slider sized for a finger.
  • Takeoff: the V-speeds and the takeoff and landing distances.
  • Emergency Return: Direct-To back to the origin, Smart Glide, and 121.5 / 7700.
• Apps: Autopilot, Briefing, Waypoint Info, Weather, Traffic, Engine, Fuel, Utilities, Charts, Emergency, and All Apps… for the rest.

On the ground the Remote opens on Initialization; in the air, on the flight plan.

ETD

Type the departure time in Initialization (HHMM, UTC). Until you take off, the flight plan’s and the nav log’s estimates count from it. Leave it blank to clear it.

How it works with your other devices

The Remote works the phone’s own avionics, and what it changes goes to the simulator through the Hub: the radios, the transponder and the autopilot at once, the flight plan a moment after each edit. The iPad’s navigator then shows the simulator’s frequencies and loads its plan. The Remote doesn’t move the iPad’s map or change its pages.

The Remote, like the rest of Avionics, is part of Headingstar Pro.

Apple Watch

The iPhone also passes the flight to an Apple Watch, and can show it on the Lock Screen: see Apple Watch and Live Activity.