Video Review: Hold Here iPhone App - Stuck Mic AvCast - An Aviation Podcast About Learning to Fly, Living to Fly, & Loving to Fly

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Hold Here: An iPhone App For Determining Holding Entry

The simple things in life are many times the best and the iPhone App “Hold Here” may be simple but it is one of the best applications for determining your holding entry. Need to know what your holding entry will be in a hurry? Simply turn the radial dial with two fingers to your radial or inbound heading and then click on right or left turns. Next dial in your heading and presto you have your holding entry depicted in a clear and easy to read format.

The Best iPhone App For Depicting Your Holding Pattern

My hat is off to the developer of Hold Here for providing such an easy to use and wonderful App for determining holding entries. Hold Here is a tool all instructors with an iPhone should purchase. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words and when you dial in the radial and heading with the display automatically showing your entry you will surely impress your students.

You can demonstrate many iterations of holding patterns much faster than you could ever draw them on a black board or dry erase board. In my case I have been using the iPad to draw holding patterns to teach my students entries but from now on I will be using Hold Here.

Bugout Time

In addition to holding pattern entries this application also serves as a Bugout Time calculator. Many of us call this Bingo Time or the amount of time you have to hold before you need to go to your alternate.

Simply enter the ground speed and distance from the holding fix to the destination. Second, enter the distance from the destination to the alternate if one is needed. Third, choose the fuel units in Minutes, Gallons, our Pounds.

When using minutes you will next enter the fuel on board in hours and minutes. If using gallons you will enter the fuel burn in gallons per hour and the number of gallons on board. If using pounds you will enter the fuel burn in pounds per hour and the number of pounds on board.

Press the Calculate Bugout Time and presto you have the number of minutes you can hold. This is a great feature for a quick calculation of the amount of time you will need to hold.

Features I Would Like To See In A Future Release

I really like the holding procedure calculations and would not change a thing. However I would change a few things on the Bugout time calculator. First, fuel burn while holding would be a great addition This addition will give a more accurate depiction of the length of time we can hold before our bugout time. Since we normally slow to a holding speed and have a much different fuel flow while holding I would like to see this in the calculation since this is what our actual fuel burn will be in the hold. Most of the time while holding we burn thirty to fifty percent less fuel than in cruise.

Example 1:

We were flying a few days ago and were going to hold over LAFAL intersection which is depicted on the ILS 17L at KPIE (St. Petersburg – Clearwater International Airport). We were flying towards the intersection on the 328 radial from SRQ (Sarasota VOR).
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As you can see by the picture below the proper holding pattern is a parallel. This took me only a few seconds to enter the radial, holding pattern direction, and our direction towards the fix.

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Example 2:

We are told we will be holding over LAFAL intersection for one hour. We have four hours of fuel on board and we will be holding 90 knots during the holding procedure and for the rest of the flight. Our alternate is KSPG (Albert Whitted Airport).

(click image to enlarge)

According to the calculation we have 183 minutes of holding fuel. This calculation is based on the regulatory fuel needed. The regulations state we need enough fuel to fly to our destination then fly to the alternate and then fly for an additional 45 minutes.

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Conclusion

I feel every instructor with an iPhone should have this application while teaching holding patterns. The instructions are simple, the application is easy to use, and the graphical depiction is easy to interpret and is one of the better graphical depictions I have seen. You can demonstrate many holding patterns in a matter of minutes while using this device.

For those who are confused about holding entries or want practice in determining if their choice of holding entry is correct, this is a must have application. I highly suggest it to all my students and pilot friends.

The bugout time needs a few more features such as fuel burn in the hold before I can use it with regularity but it is a great start. I hope to see changes in upcoming versions.

I give this application five stars for the holding pattern and three stars for the bugout time. Overall four stars well worth the low price of $1.99

Pros:
*Quick and simple to use
*Well laid out
*Very intuitive

Cons:
*Sometimes difficult to enter radials & heading
*Bugout time only as accurate as info you enter