United swaps flight manuals/charts for iPads

[Dr Mordrid]

Link....

United Airlines said Tuesday it was replacing the hefty flight manuals and chart books its pilots have long used with 11,000 iPads carrying the same data.

The 1.5 pound (0.7 kilogram) iPad will take the place of about 38 pounds (17 kilograms) of paper instructions, data and charts pilots have long used to help guide them, parent company United Continental Holdings said.

The popular tablet computer will carry the Mobile FliteDeck software app from Jeppesen, a Boeing subsidiary which provides navigation tools for air, sea and land.

"The paperless flight deck represents the next generation of flying," said Captain Fred Abbott, United's senior vice president of flight operations.

"The introduction of iPads ensures our pilots have essential and real-time information at their fingertips at all times throughout the flight."

It will be supplied to all pilots on United and Continental flights; the two carriers merged in 2010.

United is the second major US carrier to adopt the iPad as a key pilot flight aid.

In May Alaska Airlines also adopted it, after the Federal Aviation Administration okayed the iPad for cockpit use.

United estimates that using the iPad will save 16 million sheets of paper a year, and that the lighter load it represents will save 326,000 gallons (1.2 million liters) in fuel.
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[Evildead666]

Super, no batteries, no charts etc...

Paper is a very 'safe' way to store data. Hope they keep at least one copy per plane as a backup.

[Umfriend]

Of course they won't, that would defeat the savings as the one copy would need to be updated as well. I assume they have only one copy per plane.

[Dr Mordrid]

Of course they won't.....I assume they have only one copy per plane.

They'll likely have more than one iPad.

[Umfriend]

But will they work when a terrorist causes an EMP?

[Jammrock]

Sounds like an Apple sales rep is going to get a huge bonus this year. I can sea a tablet or eReader in addition to a paper manual, but all digital is not a good, fool proof solution.

[Marshmallowman]

Definitely, there are a lot of industrial grade device that I would rather they use than some consumer device... but luckily its not an airline that I will be using anytime soon.

[Dr Mordrid]

There is already a lot of talk about using iOS and Android devices during manned space missions, sooo.....

[Jammrock]

I suppose my totally biased opinion just doesn't dig the idea of sending up competitor products [I do work for the man these days]

Seriously though, technology is my life and I really dig cool gadgets, but sending up consumer devices as your lifeline on an commercial airline or a space mission. It just gives me the shivers. Software crashes (despite what certain people want you to believe, all software crashes), batteries fail, electronics fail, data can get lost, accidents happen and consumer devices can break very easily...there's just too many things that can go wrong in a critical situation.

Now, if they were implementing some super awesome custom industrial device with built-in redundancy, indestructible screen and shell, shock and vibration resistant, shielded electronics...then awesome. I'm all for it. But using consumer devices for critical roles where people's lives are on the line, not awesome. Very unawesome. Very hell-no unawesome.

*sigh*

People need to realize that consumerization should only go so far.

[Umfriend]

On the other hand...

People crash, fail, panic, err, hesititate, act hastily...

[UtwigMU]

I see there a potential for a distraction. Usually on long flights they put everything on auto once they take off and go manual just before landing. Wifi is coming to some flights and well, you can see pilots surfing facebook on iPads in flight.

Not everything is so strict up there, I have a friend whose dad let him drive a plane when he was about 15-16 for a bit. I was only given a French commuter train to drive (few 100 m forward and backward on station) at about that age .


As for consumer devices in Space - Thinkpads A30p were onboard ISS, they then went to T61p as standard PC on ISS. Don't know whether they updated this. They were running Windows.

[Dr Mordrid]

Last I heard the ISS has 68 Thinkpad A31's, 32+ Lenovo Thinkpad T61p's and 7 Russian computers; RSS1, RSS2, RSK1, RSE1, RSE-Med, TP2, and Laptop3. There is also a VoIP phone which is wired into the stations LAN.

All laptops are WiFi'ed to the stations LAN, and the ISS's net connection to the ground is 3M up and 10M down by way of a Ku band link (10.95 - 14.5 ghz). This is only available when they're in contact with the major ground stations.

[Evildead666]

100 PC's ?
WTF are they downloading/uploading up there ?
They got a Warez/Pr0n server going or what ?


edit : Maybe they're waiting for more friends to come up and have the first Orbital LAN Party ?

[degrub]

they run the experiments, log , and analyze data, etc.

[degrub]

[QUOTE=UtwigMU;684782]I see there a potential for a distraction. Usually on long flights they put everything on auto once they take off and go manual just before landing. Wifi is coming to some flights and well, you can see pilots surfing facebook on iPads in flight.

Yeah, we already had the very public demonstration of ignoring ATC and overflying destination because of using laptops.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2009/10/26/report-pilots-distracted-laptops-discussion-cockpit/