Did your CFI tell you that professional pilots don’t use kneeboards?

Well, who cares?

Are You Going to the Airlines Soon?

Here’s a question worth asking: are you headed to the airlines anytime soon? Are you building time toward a regional carrier job? Are you 23 years old with 1,200 hours and a burning desire to fly a CRJ?

No?

Then you don’t need to look the part.

You need to be safe.

Safety Over Posture

Professional pilots operate in a highly structured environment with standard operating procedures, multiple crew members, redundant systems, and company-mandated workflows. They’ve optimized their cockpit setup for that specific context.

You’re flying a single-engine piston aircraft, probably solo or with passengers who trust you to get them home in one piece. Different mission. Different tools.

Nothing makes you safer than great situational awareness. And paper kneeboards are one of the most dependable tools for maintaining it—especially when combined with modern EFBs.

Think about it: a kneeboard gives you a single-purpose, always-on, never-needs-charging place to capture critical information for this specific flight. Your clearance. Key frequencies. Alternates. Personal minimums. Whatever matters right now.

With the latest technology available in the cockpit, paper kneeboards feel like a cheat sheet for safe flying. They let you offload cognitive work so you can focus on actually flying the aircraft.

We Like ATPs, But We Love Safety More

Don’t get me wrong—we like ATPs. They’re professionals doing a demanding job in a complex system. But emulating their workflow when you’re flying a 172 on a VFR cross-country makes about as much sense as wearing a three-piece suit to mow your lawn.

It might look professional, but it’s not optimized for the task at hand.

If your CFI tells you that professional pilots don’t use kneeboards, ask them this: “Are professional pilots flying single-pilot IFR in a Skyhawk with no autopilot and ATC throwing vectors at them while they’re hand-flying an approach?”

No. They’re not.

So maybe—just maybe—what works for them isn’t what works for you.

The Bottom Line

Use the tools that make you a safer pilot. If that’s a kneeboard, great. If it’s a fully digital workflow, also great. But don’t abandon something that works just because someone told you it’s not what the pros do.

You’re not trying to impress anyone. You’re trying to get home safely.

And if a $30 piece of aluminum with some paper clipped to it helps you do that, then it’s worth more than all the professional posturing in the world.