iFly EFB

Review by eFreeware

The pilot who will get the most from iFly EFB is the general aviation flyer who wants one Android app to handle route building, chart reference and in-flight situational awareness, whether the flight is a local VFR hop or a longer cross-country.

What makes that pitch plausible is the size of the audience it already has. The app has been on Google Play since January 2014, has passed 50,000 installs, and holds a 4.9 average from 719 ratings. I would not read too much into a rating by itself, but for a tool aimed at a fairly technical crowd, that is a strong signal that the core workflow holds up.

It is free to download with no ads, and the developer offers a 30-day trial so you can plan and fly with it before committing to a subscription. The subscription comes in two tiers, VFR and IFR, and the higher one adds the instrument-flying tools.

Route planning that starts on the chart

The headline feature is flight planning that happens directly on the map. You can build a simple direct-to route or a multi-waypoint route on FAA charts, on vector maps, or on the Flight Plan page, and adjust it afterward with drag-and-drop rubber-band routing. That last detail matters more than it sounds: rerouting by dragging a leg is far quicker than deleting and re-entering waypoints, especially when weather or airspace forces a change mid-planning.

The developer also offers RealPlan, described as a patented automated VFR flight planning tool for cross-country trips. The idea is that you give it the trip and it assembles the plan rather than making you place every leg by hand. I would treat any automated planner as a starting point to review, not a substitute for your own judgment, but it is the kind of feature that saves real time on a multi-leg day.

Supporting that is a layer stack that covers the charts most US pilots actually use: sectionals, terminal area charts, low and high enroute charts, approach plates and airport diagrams, all geo-referenced. Weather overlays sit on top of the same map, including METARs, TAFs, AIRMETs, NEXRAD, winds aloft and forecast layers for clouds and flight conditions. Tapping an item brings up the detailed report.

Synthetic vision and the traffic picture

The situational awareness features are where the app gets interesting for anyone flying in busy or unfamiliar airspace. Synthetic vision renders terrain and traffic in 3D, and the developer says it works on both phones and tablets. An active alerting system adds real-time callouts for airspace, terrain and traffic, and you can define custom alerts for those categories plus oxygen and flight plan items.

Traffic and weather can also come from hardware. The app connects to ADS-B receivers including iLevil, Stratus, uAvionix and Stratux, among others, for live weather and traffic at no extra cost. If you already carry a receiver, that turns the tablet into a much richer display.

On the ground, RealView Airports provides satellite imagery for more than 12,600 airports so you can see what the field looks like before you arrive, and AutoTaxi+ is there to help with surface movement. Neither replaces a current airport diagram, but both are useful for building familiarity with an unfamiliar field before you get there.

Instruments, checklists and the rest of the panel

The instrument side is more capable than I expected from an app in this category. The panel simulates cockpit instruments using GPS or a third-party AHRS, with outputs like HSI, VSI, altimeter and turn indicator, and there are more than 24 layouts to choose from. Adding an AHRS brings an artificial horizon with attitude alerts, which is the piece that makes the panel genuinely useful rather than decorative.

Around that sit the supporting tools: weight and balance, checklists, a NOTAM viewer, a vertical profile showing altitudes, clouds, flight conditions and airspaces, and a Find Nearest button for emergencies. Flight plans and waypoints can be saved and reloaded, and custom waypoints let you mark locations that are not in the standard databases. Map orientation switches between north up and track up, and there is a day/night mode with fading buttons for cockpit use.

One detail worth noting for simmers: the developer lists compatibility with Microsoft Flight Simulator and X-Plane. That makes the app usable for practicing the same planning workflow at a desk, which is a sensible way to learn the interface before you rely on it in the air.

What it asks from you

The requirements are modest but real. You need Android 9.0 or higher and at least 1GB of free storage. The app itself is free to download and carries no ads, and the trial runs for 30 days with no commitment.

After the trial, the app runs on a subscription with two levels. VFR covers the core features for visual flying, with no paywalls on the features VFR pilots need. IFR adds the advanced tools for instrument-rated flying. Which one you need depends entirely on the kind of flying you do, so it is worth being honest with yourself about that before the trial ends.

There is also a device limit to plan around. The base subscription supports two Android devices, and a Multiplatform upgrade raises that to four devices across platforms. If you fly with both a phone and a tablet, or want the app on a home machine as well, that upgrade is the relevant one.

Getting the most from the trial month

Thirty days is enough time to test this properly if you use it deliberately. I would start by planning routes you already know well, so you can judge whether the chart presentation and the drag-to-adjust routing match how you think about a trip. Then plan something unfamiliar and let RealPlan do the first pass, and see how much editing it leaves you.

The second thing to exercise is the alerting. Configure custom alerts for terrain, traffic and airspace, and set up the instrument layout you would actually fly behind rather than accepting the default. If you have an ADS-B receiver, connect it during the trial; the weather and traffic feed is the part that changes the app from a planning tool into something you keep open in the air.

Finally, check the ground-side features against a field you do not visit often. Pull up the satellite imagery, look at the taxi guidance, and confirm the plates and diagrams you would need are there. The recent update touched visual approaches at smaller airports, with a choice of straight-in, downwind or the standard 45 entry, along with improvements to night mode visibility, weight and balance fuel checks, checklists and the measure tool. Testing those on a real trip is a better use of the trial than clicking through menus.

A capable EFB for pilots who fly often

iFly EFB is a serious tool for a specific audience: general aviation pilots who want planning, charts, weather and an instrument panel in one Android app, and who fly often enough to justify a subscription. The combination of geo-referenced charts, synthetic vision with 3D traffic, ADS-B receiver support and the depth of the instrument layouts is what sets it apart from simpler flight planning apps.

The trade-offs are straightforward. It expects a modern Android device with 1GB free, and it moves to a paid subscription after the trial, with the IFR tools and multi-device use sitting in higher tiers. None of that is unreasonable for what it does, but it does mean the app is aimed at regular flyers rather than occasional passengers with a tablet.

If you are a VFR pilot who plans cross-countries and wants better situational awareness in the cockpit, the 30-day trial is the obvious way to decide. If you fly instruments, the IFR tier is the one to evaluate. Either way, the 4.9 rating from 719 reviewers suggests most people who try it end up keeping it.

What's new

Sketching Revamp - strokes appear instantly, stay sharp as you zoom, and a quick tap always leaves a clean, round dot. Visual Approaches now work at smaller airports, and you can pick your entry: straight-in, downwind, or the standard 45. Night Mode - what you type is now clearly visible, including the Add Waypoint search. Also improved: Weight & Balance fuel checks, Checklists, Plates & Diagrams, Measure Tool, custom waypoint names, and map buttons no longer cut off at startup.