Open a flight folder and what you are looking at is its briefing - the weather, NOTAMs and duty picture the app gathers around the day you planned. This chapter is about that content: the hero and its trust check, and the four panes beneath it. The folder itself - the launcher, the wizard, the planned-active-completed life, snapshots and completion - is the Flights chapter; the route chart is Aviation Map's.

The day at a glance

The folder page leads with a hero card that reads like a flight strip: the lifecycle badge, the route, the date and sector count - and three verdict chips that answer the questions you opened the folder to ask. FDP is the legality read of your plan ("Within FDP - 9h 06m to limit"); Weather is the worst flight category across your route airports and how many are reporting; NOTAMs is the active count with criticals called out. Each chip opens the pane that owns it, and the route line doubles as a flight switcher when other folders exist.

An active flight folder's briefing: the hero card with an Active badge, route EGLL to EGCC on Wed 26 Aug with 1 sector, three verdict chips reading FDP Within FDP 9h 06m to limit, Weather VFR 2 of 2 reporting, and NOTAMs 42 active 7 critical, above a trust line reading Trusted, Current and complete, with the Overview, Weather and NOTAMs section rail below — The hero: lifecycle, route, and the day's three verdicts - FDP, weather, NOTAMs.

Below the chips sits the section rail - Overview, Weather, NOTAMs, More - each pill carrying its own honest badge: an active-NOTAM count, a dot for IFR-or-worse weather or a not-legal FDP, and a danger dot when a NOTAM source is down (absence of data is never shown as a calm zero). On iPhone the hero and rail scroll away with the content; switching panes is a scroll back to the top.

Can I trust this brief?

The hero's last line is the trust line - one honest grade for the whole brief. Trusted - Current & complete means every route airport has current weather and NOTAM data; the other states say exactly what is wrong: Aging ("Weather aging - refresh recommended"), Gaps ("1 station missing data - EGCC", "NOTAMs unavailable"), Checking while fetches settle - and on a completed folder, Sealed record - data as captured for this flight. A failed snapshot integrity check overrides everything: "Integrity check failed - do not rely on this brief."

Tap the line for the per-airport breakdown: METAR, TAF and NOTAM state for every airport on the route, plus the snapshot seal state. The sheet says what the check is - and is not: "It is not an operational clearance - always confirm against official sources."

The brief trust breakdown sheet over a dimmed folder: a green Trusted heading with Current and complete beneath it, a paragraph explaining this is a quick check of whether weather and NOTAM data is present and current for every airport on the route and not an operational clearance, and a table with METAR, TAF and NOTAMs columns showing OK for EGLL and EGCC — The trust sheet: coverage and freshness per airport - never an operational clearance.

The Overview: your plan, read as a duty

The Overview pane is the landing section. It opens on the Sharpen your brief checklist (the same optional extras the wizard offered, with a completion count), then your flight plan - aircraft, report time, each leg with its planned times - and the route map card the Aviation Map chapter covers. A daylight line follows when it has something to say: sunset at your destination against your planned arrival, framed as "a personal cushion, not a night rule".

Then comes the section the folder derives from your times: Duty & FDP. Once your legs carry full planned times, the folder derives a real duty in your duty log and reads it with the same FTL engine as the Duty & FTL tab: the verdict word (WITHIN FDP / NEAR LIMIT / OVER FDP), your active regime, and an FDP rail that turns the limit into a clock time - report, FDP end, and the "be on blocks by" limit.

The Overview's Duty and FDP section: a green Within FDP band labelled EASA ORO.FTL showing 9h 06m remaining of max FDP, a usage bar, and a rail reading Report 16:40Z, FDP ends 18:35Z, FDP limit 03:40Z with 1h 54m planned of 11h 00m max and a Why this limit disclosure - beneath the route map card's Not for navigation attribution line and a sunset-at-destination note — The FDP verdict band: the plan's legality read, with the limit as a clock time.

Under the band, a what-if strip reuses the same engine run to answer "what if the day slips", and a next legal report card projects your earliest next report with its assumptions stated. View duty details jumps to the Duty dashboard for the full breakdown, and What is this? opens the written guide. Below it all sits the readiness estimate - a fatigue score from your recent duty pattern with its drivers listed, and its framing verbatim: "ESTIMATE from observable duty patterns - informational guidance, not a medical or regulatory (FRMS) assessment."

Further down the Overview: a Next legal report card reading Thu 27 Aug 07:05Z, in 14h 20m, min rest 12h 00m with the note that it assumes the duty ends on time, a View duty details button, a What is this link, and the Readiness estimate card showing Low readiness 39 out of 100 with drivers such as short rest periods and early starts — Next legal report, the door to the Duty tab - and the readiness estimate with its drivers.

Offline readiness and your records

Two more Overview cards keep the day honest. Offline readiness answers "if I go offline right now, what do I have?" - a plain count of cached sources ("6 of 6 sources cached") with per-row detail for METAR, TAF, NOTAMs, winds, sealed snapshots and chart packs. Facts only: there is deliberately no aggregate READY seal. Your records shows your stored credentials evaluated for the flight's date, with its framing on the card: "You entered these - this is not an authoritative statement that you are legal to operate."

The Overview's Offline readiness card reading 6 of 6 sources cached, with rows for METAR, TAF and NOTAMs each covering all 2 stations, winds aloft cached, sealed snapshots counting 4 weather 2 NOTAM 1 winds, and chart packs covering both stations - above the Your records card explaining stored credentials are not an authoritative statement that you are legal to operate — Offline readiness is a count of facts, never a READY seal - and your records stay yours.

Mark it reviewed

The Overview closes the trust loop with a human step: Mark this brief as reviewed. The button only unlocks while the aggregate trust is current and complete, and the card carries your personal reading progress - "You've ticked 2 of 70 listed NOTAMs as viewed" - as a shortcut to the NOTAMs pane, never a gate. Once recorded it shows "Reviewed by you at ...Z" and flips to "review again" the moment the frozen data changes. The foot of the pane says what the whole thing is, verbatim: "Personal planning only." and "Personal review note - not a dispatch release or operational sign-off."

The foot of the Overview: credential rows reading Flight review valid 127 days and Class 2 medical valid 111 days, the Mark this brief as reviewed card with the line You've ticked 2 of 70 listed NOTAMs as viewed and a Mark as reviewed personal note button, the Active lifecycle bar with a Complete flight button, and the closing lines Personal planning only and Personal review note, not a dispatch release or operational sign-off — The human half of the trust loop - a personal note, and the pane says so in as many words.

Weather, station by station

The Weather pane briefs every route airport with the same raw-first cards the station workbench uses: the raw METAR always on top in monospace, the decoded strip beneath it, a TAF read against your planned time at that airport, and the flight-category pill. Around the cards: a route personal-minimums band (or a link to set them), Compare airports side by side, the enroute hazards band, and winds aloft per departure. The pane carries the weather module's standing line at its foot, verbatim: "Reference only - verify officially." The full station workbench - decode detail, charts, archives - is the Weather chapter.

The Weather pane of an active folder: the section rail with Weather selected, a row inviting you to set personal minimums to see them assessed against this route, and the EGLL station card with a VMC pill, the raw METAR EGLL 261620Z AUTO 08014KT 9999 in monospace and a decoded strip showing wind 080 at 14, no cloud detected, visibility 9999 and QNH 1011 — Raw first, decoded beneath - the same honest weather cards, briefed per route airport.

NOTAMs, triaged

The NOTAMs pane loads every route airport's notices and gives you one card to narrow the day: free-text search, counted category chips (aerodrome, enroute, navigation, airspace, other), and a Priority first toggle that sets aside low-priority notices behind a one-tap Show - nothing is removed. Tapping a card's Show details opens the full decode; reading a card ticks it as viewed, which is what the review card's "N of M" line counts. A NOTAM briefing pack row exports the route's full loaded set as a PDF - always the complete set, never the filtered view. The pane's standing line is the NOTAM module's, verbatim: "May be incomplete - verify officially." - an empty list never means no restrictions exist. The workbench side - FIR watches, maps, alerts - is the NOTAMs chapter.

The NOTAMs pane of an active folder: the section rail with NOTAMs selected showing a 42 badge, a search field reading Search NOTAM ID or text, counted category chips for All 70, Aerodrome 13, Enroute 0, Navigation 12, Airspace 6 and Other 39, and the note that Priority first sets aside low-priority NOTAMs behind a one-tap Show, nothing is removed — Search, counted categories, Priority first - one card narrows the whole day's NOTAMs.

More: the folder's shelf

The More pane is the folder's record shelf. A tools row opens crosswind, weather charts and other utilities pre-filled with your route airports, and the decks beneath hold everything the day accumulates: the Passenger announcement talking points Pro, Briefing snapshots (the sealed captures the Flights chapter covers), Notes, Voyage reports (informal write-ups, never a formal occurrence report), Attachments for plates and photos, and Checklists.

The More pane's record decks, each a folded card with a subtitle: Passenger announcement talking points, Briefing snapshots counting 5 saved weather and NOTAM snapshots, Notes for this flight, Voyage reports for informal write-ups, Attachments for plates photos and documents, and Checklists for pre-flight and procedure checks — The More pane: every record the day accumulates, one folded deck each.

The folder's overflow menu also offers Add another station - freeze weather or NOTAMs for an airport that is not on your route (an alternate you are only monitoring, say), into the same folder.

On iPad

In landscape, the folder page splits: a fixed spine carries the identity, verdict chips, trust line and section navigation, and the pane fills the rest of the canvas - the same content, read side by side. Portrait keeps the stacked layout above.

The flight folder briefing on an iPad in landscape: a left spine with the route EGLL to EGCC, the FDP, Weather and NOTAMs verdict chips, the trust line and a vertical section list for Overview, Weather, NOTAMs and More, beside the full-width Overview pane showing the flight plan and route map — iPad landscape: the hero becomes a spine, and the pane gets the canvas.

The written guide

The Brief tab ships its own long-form manual: Using Flight Brief, free, behind the info button on the folder hero - and the wizard's "What goes into a briefing?" link and the FDP band's "What is this?" both deep-link into it. Twelve expandable topics cover the whole tab, with the same honest framing the app uses everywhere: "Everything here is informational - always confirm with your official sources before you fly."

The Using Flight Brief guide screen, subtitled Your pre-flight picture: a What Flight Brief is for card noting 12 topics and a 13 minute read, an introduction explaining Flight Brief builds a personal picture of a flying day, and an In this guide list with topics such as Two ways to use it, Setting up a day and Sharpen your brief — The built-in manual for the whole tab - free, and one tap from the wizard.

Free and Pro

The briefing panes are part of the free app: the hero, trust check, Overview bands, weather and NOTAM panes and the written guide all work on the free tier, within its 3 flight folders. The FDP verdict appears once your legs carry full planned times - the folder then derives a real duty in your duty log, which counts toward the free tier's 20-duty allowance. Pro appears in two places on these panes: the Weather picture charts door on the Weather pane, and the Passenger announcement deck on More. Free vs Pro has the whole picture, priced.

Where next

Flights - the folder around this briefing: wizard, lifecycle, completion, snapshots.
Aviation Map - the route chart on the Overview.
Duty & FTL - the engine behind the FDP verdict and the numbers it reads.
Weather and NOTAMs - the station workbench the panes link into.