The Flight Chain App has been updated, including new accident case studies on the blog AheadOfThePowerCurve.com.
It’s another step in Flight Chain App’s continued effort to make it easier for pilots to learn from accident chains and NTSB reports, according to company officials.
Updates
Beginning with its version 1.15 app release on March 8, 2021, Flight Chain App now fully supports Dark Mode for iOS.
“2020 was a crazy year to get through for everyone. But as we get into 2021 and things start to stabilize a bit, we wanted to get back on the development track and make sure Flight Chain App can properly honor the Display & Brightness preference the user has chosen for their iPhone and iPad,” said Dan Sobczak, founder of Flight Chain App.
“We also wanted to make sure we’ve added improvements as needed to ensure the app continues to meet Apple’s new privacy changes with iOS 14,” Sobczak added.
New accident case studies published
Throughout 2020 and into 2021, Flight Chain App and its Ahead Of The Power Curve blog continues to feature accident case studies in both general and commercial aviation.
“Our goal with accident case studies is not only to answer the question ‘how did this happen?’ Sobczak said. “More importantly, we want to explore what the critical decision points in the accident chain were that lead to the accident.”
“By exploring those decision points in the accident chain format, we hope these accident case studies can help pilots enhance their decision-making skills, and stay ahead of the power curve,” he added.
Recent accident case studies published include:
- Why a pilot attempted to squeeze in an ILS approach where weather was far below the minimums for the approach.
- How that ‘178 Seconds to Live’ story that you’ve probably seen posted on a bulletin board at a local flying school teaches pilots why VFR into IMC flight happens.
- And an ‘almost’ accident case study where a commercial airliner narrowly avoided what could have been the worst accident in aviation history — and what caused this evolving accident chain to break at the last possible second.
No more monthly subscription fees
Beginning with its version 1.14 app update in August 2020, the optional in-app purchase subscription plans (formerly known as ‘Plus’ and ‘Expert’) were discontinued.
“User feedback told us that subscriptions were not well received and they limited the usefulness of the app for the majority of users. As a result, they were a hindrance to our goal of providing more safety information to more pilots,” Sobczak said.
All features that were previously associated with the former ‘Plus’ and ‘Expert’ plans are available to all users who download the app.
For users who did purchase an optional subscription plan, their subscription automatically cancelled at the end of their billing cycle with Apple in September 2020, and they continued to have access to all features in Flight Chain App.