Tab As You Go, Why Your FAR/AIM Belongs on Paper and How to Make It Actually Work For You

The FAR/AIM remains one of the last paper books in many pilots’ flight bags, even as the rest of ground school has moved to tablets. The reason is a study habit endorsed by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) called “tab as you go” - marking the regulations you actually use so you can find answers fast. Whether on paper or in an app, the discipline of deciding “this rule matters, I’m marking it” is what turns a regulation you skimmed into one you own.

Why the FAR/AIM Is Still a Paper Book

Nearly everything about how pilots study has moved onto a screen. The Private Pilot Handbook, the Airplane Flying Handbook, weather theory, and aerodynamics all live in apps now - highlighted, searchable, and backed up to the cloud. That’s genuinely a good thing: it’s lighter, cheaper, and lets you carry an entire ground school library in something thinner than a kneeboard.

But one book stubbornly resists going digital for many pilots and instructors: the FAR/AIM.

FAR stands for the Federal Aviation Regulations. AIM stands for the Aeronautical Information Manual. Bundled together, they form a printed book published fresh every year, updated to reflect the regulatory changes and recommended best practices from the previous twelve months.

Part of why it survives on paper is simple: the regulations change annually. Buying a new edition forces you to confront what’s different. With a static app that updates quietly in the background, you can go a long time without noticing that a rule you learned last year now reads differently.

What “Tab As You Go” Actually Means

The bigger reason - and the real point of the AOPA tip - is the study technique itself.

As you work through the FAR/AIM during training, every time you land on a regulation that matters to you, you place a small adhesive index tab on it - the kind you can write on. Part 61 covers the certification of pilots. Part 91 covers the general operating and flight rules. You tab the specific sections you keep returning to:

• Right-of-way rules
• Fuel requirements
• Required equipment
• Currency for carrying passengers
• Cloud clearances and visibility minimums

The key is that you don’t tab the whole book - that defeats the purpose. You tab only the regulations you actually use and the ones you actually struggle to remember.

Why Tabbing Matters for Your Checkride

When you sit down with a designated pilot examiner (DPE), you are allowed to look things up. Nobody expects you to have the entire code of federal regulations memorized to the letter. What they expect is that you can find the answer quickly and confidently.

A student who flips straight to the tab marked “night currency” and reads the regulation aloud looks like a pilot who knows their way around the rulebook. A student thumbing through hundreds of pages in silence looks like someone hoping to get lucky. Same knowledge - completely different impression.

Why It Matters for Your Whole Flying Career

The benefit that outlasts your checkride is the more important one, because it affects every pilot who keeps flying after certification.

The regulations aren’t something you learn once and file away. A pilot with thirty years of experience still pulls out the book: Can I legally take this flight? What are the fuel reserves for a night cross-country? My medical situation just changed - what does the reg actually say?

A tabbed, marked-up FAR/AIM is a tool you reach for in the moment, on the ground, before you make a decision. The muscle memory of knowing roughly where things live in that book is something you build during training and carry for a career.

Paper or Digital? It’s Not Really the Point

This isn’t fundamentally about paper versus screen. If a searchable app is how your brain works best, use it. The digital FAR/AIM is a genuinely good product, and being able to search the exact text of a regulation on your phone at the airport is a real capability pilots didn’t have twenty years ago.

The deeper lesson underneath the AOPA tip is this: don’t be a passive reader of the regulations. Whether your tabs are colored plastic or digital bookmarks, the act of deciding “this one matters, I’m marking it” is what moves a rule from something you skimmed to something you own. Tabbing is just the visible sign of an engaged student.

What to Do This Week

• If you’re in training: Get a pack of tabs this week. Start with the regulations your instructor keeps quizzing you on, and add more as you go.
• If you’re a certificated pilot: Pull the book off the shelf and check the year on the spine. If it’s more than a couple of editions old, the rules have almost certainly moved underneath you - and a fresh copy is one of the cheapest safety investments you’ll ever make.
• If you fly digital: Spend twenty minutes building out your bookmarks in the app the same way you’d tab a book. Same discipline, different medium.

Key Takeaways

• The FAR/AIM is republished on paper every year, and buying the new edition forces you to notice what changed.
• “Tab as you go” - an AOPA training tip - means marking only the regulations you actually use and struggle to remember, not the whole book.
• Tabs help on the checkride, where you’re allowed to look things up and examiners reward pilots who can find answers fast.
• The lasting payoff is career-long: knowing where the answers live so you can check a reg before making a go/no-go decision.
• The principle works in any format - paper tabs or digital bookmarks. Active marking beats passive reading.