I have not flown for a few years and a much longer since flying IFR.

I came across an old flight bag tucked away in a closet.

Inside was a leather binders filled with Jepp charts

Does anyone use paper approach plates anymore?


An SCG-9 Jeppesen flight computer that looks like a slide rule.

A manual from a 1979 skyhawk C-172.

Are these all museum pieces now?

What are people using now? I am guessing tablets.

Do pilots keep paper as backups if the tablet dies?

Most don't keep paper backups. Most modern avionics have the charts built-in now (full IFR), the backup is a tablet (or 2). A lot of avionics will speak directly to the tablets now also.

I did my advanced radio nav class in college with an E6B. No electronic calculators were allowed. That was the mid 2000's though. They probably don't even teach the class anymore.

I still buy paper VFR charts, but I only do it every other year or so. My tablet keeps me legal.

I print my primary and alternate plates just prior to a flight, because I like the paper.

I don't know anyone else who still does that. Even my father and all his retired flight buddies all fly with an Ipad these days.

Everybody seems to use tablets, at least in the civilian world. When we'd get new hires into the airlines they all had subscriptions to inflight services to include streaming real-time weather and all the charts. Actually more capability than we had in the modern new-from-the-factory airliners!

Even the training aircraft have flat panel displays with all kinds of data capability. No more needle-ball-airspeed. None of the new hires had even flown a real NDB approach.

In the airline we were required to have two operable tablets with current databases. No paper charts or SOP in the cockpit!

I don't miss hauling around a 40 pound bag of Jeps, nor do I miss doing all the revisions. Were I flying single-pilot small aircraft these days I would carry some relevant paper charts. I always preferred the NOS charts to Jeps, and one of those books would be small enough to carry.

Nobody uses the old slide-rule or whiz-wheel any more in real flying afaik.

I thought this was going to be about Suits vs. Pajamas.

The Old Guy is a throw-back. The EFB was always backed up by whatever I thought was the bare minimum of paper to get me there in the event of total electronic failure.

That might mean a couple of sectionals for a VFR day flight, or IFR enroute and approach charts for the planned destination and, if applicable, the alternate.

That would all fit in a single small Jepp binder loaded for the trip, instead of the pre-EFB 40 pound catalog case. I preferred Jeppesen's format for approach charts, and pre-EFB when I carried a full load of paper, I liked the NOS enroute charts better than Jeppesen, so it was mix-and-match for me. For the occasional trips outside of my subscription area, I did use the NOS approach charts, they were easier to obtain for spur-of-the-minute trips.

I always had, and maintained proficiency with, a standard E6B and the Jeppesen CR type equivalent. Because I had used these for decades, I found them easier and faster to use than the electronic calculator types. In fact, I took the ATP Knowledge Exam with an E6B.

And yes, NDB approach charts were included if the airplane was equipped with ADF; I actually maintained proficiency with this antique.

In The Beginning (of my flying days) I sought out one of the few remaining four-legged A-N ranges and flew around the area, playing with it, to see what it was like for the early radio navigation pioneers. Anybody of y'all ever fly using one of these?