Flight Brief on Pilot EFB Desk is the flight-folder journey at /flights:
one folder per flight, holding your route and times, the weather and NOTAMs
briefed around them, your notes, snapshots and attachments. On a desk the
folder reads as a record - a route head, cells that state what is set and
what is still an estimate, a trust line that says whether every station on
the route answered with current data. The footers are the module's
standing framing, verbatim from the app: "Reference only - verify
officially." under the weather, "May be incomplete - verify officially."
under the NOTAMs, "Personal planning only." under the FDP, and "Personal
reference · not for operational use" at the foot of every folder.
Find your way around
The landing is headed Your briefings, with the count of sealed folders and a List | Calendar toggle over the same folders. At desk width the planner is a left column with your live and planned folders under it, and the briefings ledger sits beside it.
| Region | What it shows |
|---|---|
| PLAN A NEW BRIEFING | The create card: FROM and TO ICAO wells, a swap button, and Build briefing. The chips LIVE WX, NOTAMS and FDP name what a folder pulls |
| TODAY'S FLIGHT | Under the planner: the active folder, with an "n active" count |
| UPCOMING | Under the planner: planned folders, with an "n planned" count |
| BRIEFINGS | The ledger beside the planner, with its count and a View logbook button: RECENT BRIEFINGS (completed folders), then ARCHIVED (dimmed, each with its status chip). With neither yet it reads "No past briefings yet" and says your folders sit in the planner column until their day has passed |
| Calendar | A month grid over the same folders, with a day panel beside it |
Each folder card carries a date tile, the route chain, a sector chip ("1 sector", "2 sectors"), a Today chip on today's planned folder, a Date passed chip on a planned folder whose day has gone, the aircraft type and registration in mono, a "sealed 2 WX · 1 NOTAM" note on any folder holding snapshots, and "not sealed" on a completed folder without them. The section a card sits in says its lifecycle, so a Planned, Active or Completed chip prints only under ARCHIVED, where the three mix. A folder linked to a duty adds a block time and an FDP verdict chip (Within FDP, Near limit or Over FDP) on the route row itself; when the duty history cannot be read, a band says so and offers Retry rather than showing a silent dash.
With no folders at all the landing opens on an empty stage titled "No briefings yet", with a Plan a briefing action that focuses the FROM well, and the footnote "Informational only - a folder is a read of public sources at one instant, never a dispatch release."
How to plan a briefing from a city pair
- Open Flight Brief from the sidebar.
- Type the departure ICAO into FROM and the destination into TO. The swap button between them exchanges the two.
- Press Build briefing. The Plan a flight page opens with the city pair already on leg 1. It is one page with nothing locked or folded away: "A route and a report time are all a brief needs. Everything else sharpens it, and can wait."
- At desk width the page runs in two columns: The essentials, then Legs with a card per leg, on the left, and The day - Aircraft & crew, Duty times and Monitoring & notes - on the right. The essentials badge reads Required until they are in, then Done.
- Under The essentials, check the From and To fields, press Add onward leg for a multi-sector day, and set the Reporting airport and the Reporting time. Same as departure fills the reporting airport from leg 1 in one click. The reporting time anchors the duty day; its + button opens the time editor, where Now (Z) fills in the current UTC minute. Template in the Route card pre-fills the route from a template you saved off an earlier folder.
- Fill in what you have under Legs and The day (both marked Optional), or leave it: "Add what you have. Anything you leave shows on the brief's checklist." Aircraft & crew heads The day, because the type sizes the leg-time estimates. Each leg card takes planned off-block, takeoff, landing and on-block times (the app seeds estimates from your taxi allowance and cruise speed, marked Estimate and named in an "Estimated with" line until you change them), a flight number, a cruise level, alternates and your role; the day cards take duty times, extra airports to brief and free-form notes.
- Press View briefing in the action bar along the bottom, or press Enter. You land in the folder and the brief builds around your day.
The status line beside the button always says where you stand: what is still missing ("Add the reporting airport and a reporting time to build the brief."), Draft saved. Brief now, or add more below. once the essentials are in, or Ready to brief. Everything else is optional.
Reporting times more than 24 hours in the past are refused with "This reporting time is more than 24 hours in the past - set a current or future time to continue."; a time a few hours back is accepted with the note "This reporting time is in the past - fine if you are already on duty."
How to read the folder
Open a folder from any card or calendar day. The page is one continuous ops surface: a header, a masthead with a verdict column and the signal rail, then eight numbered chapters under a chapter bar, each a heading over its own panels, at the full width of the page.
| Region | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Header | The Folders breadcrumb, a UTC · Z / Local · L toggle, Refresh, the note button, the ... menu, Watch this flight and Save brief to flight |
| Masthead | The identity line, then the day's first and last station codes in the condensed face with the day's totals (block, distance, level) beside them; the route spine on a recessed well - one fixed column per stop with its flight-rules chip centred under the code, equal-share legs between them with the flight number, block and state word ("est", "flown", "current leg"); and a hairline strip of the fixed facts - Report and Release, each reading "Not set" until you set it, then Aircraft and Crew once the folder holds them |
| Verdict column | What to review before you go, with its reasons, answered once: Exceeds a modelled limit as planned, Review before you go, No blocking items found or Not yet assessed, with the numbered reasons under it, blocking first - a hard FTL breach or FDP over max, an expired or due credential, critical NOTAMs or a NOTAM source outage, an incomplete brief. An underived FDP reads "Not yet assessed", never "clear". The lifecycle strip is the column's foot: a planned folder says when it will start itself, an active one offers Complete flight, and a completed one Reopen and Fly again |
| Signal rail | Five cells, each leading with its figure: FDP margin ("Estimate until timed" until the duty is timed, then the margin "within HH:MM max"), Route weather (the worst category and "n of n reporting"), NOTAMs ("n active" with "n critical", "None active", "None returned" over "n not reporting" when stations did not answer, "Checking", or "Unavailable" over "source down"), Compliance (from your records) and Readiness ("N of M steps"). The band runs two columns while an FDP card is mounted and full width otherwise |
| Chapter bar | Under the masthead and pinned as you scroll: the eight chapters by number, each a button that jumps to its chapter with a small read beside its name - the setup steps added ("5/7"), a critical NOTAM count, a tone dot, or the NOTAMs viewed. A chapter the folder lacks is left out and the numbers close up. The trust line sits under it |
| 01 Readiness | The Sharpen your brief strip: "N of 7 added" with a segment meter, each missing input as a tile with Add, and the inputs already in as chips under ADDED |
| 02 Duty & records | The Flight duty period and fatigue reads once the duty is timed, beside Your records and currency - your currency rules and credentials with their expiry, headed "Review before you go" when something is close: "This is your personal record, not an authoritative legality check." |
| 03 Route & airports | The day plan once the day has a duty (and on a completed folder), then Route weather, one column per airport with "Worst on route" first and Refresh weather, and Runway wind & low-sun, one cell per stop at its own time from its own TAF |
| 04 NOTAMs | "Ranked, closures first" as a two-pane desk: the airports down the left in route order with each one's count, critical count and viewed progress, and the picked airport's ranked rows on the right, with a tier filter that says what it is hiding. "Viewed N of M" heads the chapter |
| 05 Enroute | The Route map beside the Along the route corridor band, then winds aloft |
| 06 Alternates | Alternate screening for the arrival: "Candidates for your own evaluation - not a recommendation." |
| 07 Flight folder | Crew bag and Pre-flight notes ("Notes and sealed briefing snapshots"), then Voyage reports and Checklists |
| 08 Review | Review before you go: mark the brief as reviewed, with the count of NOTAMs you have ticked as viewed |
Every chapter heading carries the same number as its tab in the chapter bar, "01" to "08", so you can name a part of the brief ("check 04") and the bar and the headings can never disagree.
The trust line grades the data behind the brief in one word: Up to date ("Current - all stations answered"), Aging or Gaps, with the station-by-station reasons a click away. Its explainer states its limits: "A quick check of whether weather and NOTAM data is present and current for every airport on your route. It is not an operational clearance - always confirm against official sources."
How to sharpen the brief
- Read the Sharpen your brief strip in 01 Readiness. While the folder is thin it warns "Your FDP is an estimate until the flight-duty items below are complete." and counts what you have added, "5 of 7 added".
- Click Add on a missing input to jump to that field on the planner. Each tile names what it adds to the brief:
| Tile | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Route legs | Route weather and NOTAMs |
| Leg times | FDP sectors and duty length |
| Report time & place | The duty start and a real FDP |
| End-of-duty time | FDP margin and fatigue |
| Crew & rest facility | Augmented-crew FDP accuracy |
| Aircraft type | The currency and recency check |
| Alternates | Alternate weather and NOTAMs |
- As you fill fields in, the cells on the masthead change from "Not set" and "Estimate" to the figures, the FDP margin becomes a verdict and the verdict column moves off "Not yet assessed". The card turns green once every item is added.
How to read route weather and NOTAMs
- Scroll to Route weather. Each field has a card with wind, visibility, ceiling, temperature and dew point and QNH; the panel is headed with the fields it covers ("METAR · TAF · 2 fields") and Worst on route leads. Refresh weather fetches again. The foot reads "Reference only - verify officially."
- Scroll to NOTAMs. Entries are "Ranked · closures first", one board row each, grouped by Departure, Destination, Alternate, Enroute and Turnaround, with an "In your planned window" mark on the ones whose validity overlaps your times. Show raw on a row opens the raw text; Refresh NOTAMs fetches again. "No NOTAMs returned" is a report of what the source sent, not an all-clear; the foot reads "May be incomplete - verify officially."
- The Along the route band rolls up the corridor sweep by tier - critical first - and Open in Ops Map opens the route on the Ops Map with the NOTAM layer and corridor armed. If the corridor was not swept it says so: "No route NOTAM data - the corridor was not swept".
How to mark the brief as reviewed
- In the working grid, find the review card. Its title is Mark this brief as reviewed and it asks you to "Confirm you have read the weather and NOTAMs for this brief."; a line beneath counts the NOTAMs you have opened.
- Press Mark as reviewed (personal note). The card then reads "Reviewed by you at" with the UTC time.
- If the frozen data changes afterwards, the card turns amber, titled Review again, with Mark as reviewed again.
While the trust line reads Gaps or Aging the button stays off: "Resolve the gaps and refresh, then you can mark it reviewed." The mark is a personal note, and the app says so on the button itself: "not an operational sign-off".
How to read the route map
The Route map panel in the working grid is a plan view of your route: 1:10m coastlines and borders with country names, a graticule with edge captions, a distance label laid along each leg, direction arrows, open-triangle ticks for the filed fixes with their idents where room allows, a scale bar, a north arrow, and the surrounding large and medium aerodromes drawn as ring-and-runway symbols with mono ICAO labels. Each route stop and alternate carries a bar showing its longest runway's true orientation, left out when the dataset has no heading. The caption states the limit: "Schematic route only - not for navigation." Open this route in the Ops Map hands the route to the Ops Map for the live chart.
How to save a hash-verified snapshot
- On a Planned or Active folder, press Save brief to flight in the header. The live weather and NOTAMs are frozen into the folder as they are at that moment.
- Open Pre-flight notes in 07 Flight folder to see the ledger of notes and snapshots, each with its saved time and a Verified ✓ mark.
- On a completed folder the Route weather and NOTAMs chapters show the frozen set instead of live data.
The row explains the mechanism before you have used it: "Nothing sealed yet. Starting the flight saves the weather and NOTAMs you briefed here, time-stamped and hash-checked." Every snapshot is hashed with SHA-256 when it is written and the hash is checked every time it is displayed; a mismatch is reported as "Snapshot integrity check failed" rather than showing the data as sound.
How to export the briefing pack
- Open the folder's
...menu and, under Manage, press Share brief (PDF). The browser produces the pack as a PDF document. - To carry an Ops Map view in the pack, capture it first: open the route on the Ops Map, set the layers and time you want, and press Add map to briefing pack in its Share panel. The map needs a brief leg selected - "Select a brief flight leg first - the pack belongs to a flight."
- Export the pack from that folder. The map page carries the "Not for navigation" badge, the basemap credit and the UTC capture stamp burned into the image itself, and it embeds only in the flight the capture was made for.
The captured map lives in memory only. Reloading the browser clears it, and the next pack simply has no map page rather than a stale one.
How to use the crew bag
- Scroll to Crew bag in the working grid ("stored per-flight · hashed").
- Drag files onto the dashed well - "Drop charts, plates or a roster photo here - kept on this flight, offline." - or press + Add document and pick a photo or PDF.
- Each row shows the file name, its size, "added" with the UTC time, a short hash, and its kind, Image or Document; an image kept in this browser shows as a thumbnail. Click a row to preview it; a file kept in this browser also carries an Open · Save pair - Open shows it in a new tab in the browser's own viewer, Save downloads it under its name. The bin button asks "Delete attachment?" before removing it.
Attachments you add in the browser upload with sync to the same cloud storage the iOS app uses, so they are not lost to a browser clean-up and appear on your phone. A file added on the phone lists here with the caption "Available on your iPhone or iPad" and does not open in the browser. Completing the folder does not lock the crew bag: adding, dropping and deleting stay live on a completed folder.
How to watch this flight
- In the folder header, press Watch this flight (it reads "Reading route..." while the legs are resolved).
- The Watch Desk rule editor opens prefilled with the folder as a route scope - departure, destination, alternates and monitored airports with the ETA - and a TAF rule for IFR or worse in the 6 hours around your ETA.
- Confirm the rule there. Nothing is saved on the press itself.
A folder with no legs says so in place: "This folder has no route airports yet - add legs first." The button is hidden on a completed folder.
How to manage the folder
The ... menu in the header groups the actions:
| Group | Actions |
|---|---|
| This briefing | Edit briefing, Mark as flown on a Planned folder whose date has passed, Add another station (freeze weather or NOTAMs for an off-route station), Start now on a Planned folder |
| New flight | Plan another flight, Fly again (a fresh folder pre-filled from this one) |
| Manage | Share brief (PDF), Save as template, Archive or Unarchive, Delete folder |
Flew a planned day but never started its folder? Open it from its Date passed card and choose Mark as flown rather than Start now, which would record today as the start. With sectors to log, the completion review opens first (Mark flown & log the entries, or Skip & just mark flown); without them a confirm dialog names the start and end times it will record. Those times come from what the folder already holds - report or the first off-block, and the last on-block or end of duty - and a time it does not hold is left blank rather than filled with "now". No weather or NOTAM snapshot is saved, because today's data is not that flight's.
A Planned folder starts itself at its earliest entered time and goes Active ("Starts automatically at ..."); the lifecycle line offers Undo - back to draft if it started before you were ready. Completing a folder seals its weather and NOTAM snapshots and its pre-flight notes, and the header drops the note button, Watch this flight and Save brief to flight; the crew bag stays open, and the lifecycle strip offers Reopen and Fly again. Completing the day and turning sectors into logbook entries works as in the iOS chapter, and the entries land in the Logbook.
How to use the calendar
- Press Calendar in the toggle at the top of the landing.
- Move between months with the arrows, or Jump to the current month. A day with a folder shows its route; a day with a duty but no folder shows a hollow marker.
- Click a day. The panel beside the grid lists its folders ("2 flights") with a route, registration, date and status line each, reads "Duty day - no flight folder / Open the Duty hub for the figures" on a duty-only day, or "Nothing planned or flown on this day." otherwise.
- Press Add flight on this date to open the Plan a flight page with that date.
On iPhone and iPad
On the phone the same folders live in the Brief tab as the Flight Brief launcher, with the same one-page planner, the suggestion card from your roster, snapshots from the folder's add button and the completion review that proposes one logbook entry per sector; the free tier there holds 3 folders. The browser-only pieces are the calendar over the same folders, the two- column planner with its keyboard chords, the plan-view route map, the Ops Map snapshot in the pack, drag-and-drop into the crew bag and Watch this flight. See Flights on iPhone and Brief on iPhone.
Troubleshooting
FDP margin shows a dash and the verdict reads "Not yet assessed". The cell reads "Estimate until timed" until the folder has a reporting time and an end-of-duty time. Add them from the Sharpen your brief tiles, and check a duty rule set is chosen in Settings.
The landing shows a dash where the FDP verdict should be. The duty history behind the verdicts could not be read; the band says "Duty history could not be read, so FDP legality shows a dash instead of a verdict." Press Retry.
Mark as reviewed is off. The trust line reads Aging or Gaps. The card says "Resolve the gaps and refresh, then you can mark it reviewed." - fix the missing or stale stations and press Refresh.
The pack has no map page. The Ops Map capture lives in memory and a reload clears it, and a capture embeds only in the folder whose leg was selected when it was taken. Capture again and export from that folder.
The NOTAMs cell reads "Unavailable" over "source down". The NOTAM source did not answer. The folder does not guess; "No NOTAMs returned" or an unavailable source is never an all-clear. Press Refresh NOTAMs later and verify officially.
Where next
- Weather - the workbench behind the Route weather zone, for reading any one of the day's airports in full.
- NOTAMs - the full NOTAM board the folder's rows link to.
- Ops Map - the live chart the route map hands off to, and where the pack's map snapshot is captured.
- Watch - the rule editor Watch this flight opens.