United Airlines Deploying 11,000 iPads to Pilots as Electronic Flight Bags

[MacRumors]

Over the past several months, we've made several mentions of commercial airlines testing the iPad as a replacement for flight bags used by pilots. The testing programs have been looking to replace bulky and heavy flight bags full of navigational charts and other materials with iPads in order to reduce the weight of pilots' bags and save fuel on flights.

United Airlines today announced that it has gone a step further, committing to a full transition to using iPads as electronic flight bags and rolling out 11,000 iPads to United and Continental pilots.

Each iPad, which weighs less than 1.5 pounds, will replace approximately 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information in a pilot's flight bag. A conventional flight bag full of paper materials contains an average of 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot. The green benefits of moving to EFBs are two-fold--it significantly reduces paper use and printing, and, in turn, reduces fuel consumption. The airline projects EFBs will save nearly 16 million sheets of paper a year which is equivalent to more than 1,900 trees not cut down. Saving 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 3,208 metric tons.

The iPads are equipped Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck, which is a free download from the App Store but requires a paid subscription to Jeppesen's services.

The report notes that the iPads will streamline pilots' work by eliminating the need for thumbing through sheafs of paper or waiting for pages to print. The iPads will reduce clutter on cramped flight decks and offer quick and easy access to required data at all times.

Article Link: United Airlines Deploying 11,000 iPads to Pilots as Electronic Flight Bags

 

[McNitefly]

Marketing

That's an amazing marketing topic for apple!!!

Since you should expect the airlines to have tested the iPad very good regarding reliability.
If I were Apple, I'd choose this topic for my next iPad commercial

McNitefly

 

[pjhamill]

This is the future and I like it.

 

[CChrisG]

Let's see when the first plane crashes cuz the pilot was playing Angry Birds

 

[alexexexex]

in before someone uses the word iToys

 

[ChristianVirtual]

A nice business case and good for the environment...

 

[Small White Car]

But remember, iPads are just for consuming content, not for real work!

 

[RoelJuun]

The iPads fly from the shelves. Interested in the total iPad sales at the end of this year.

 

[Yebot]

I'd better not see one of those in use during take off or landing.

 

[bushido]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; de-de) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

i hope it doesnt crash, by te time any iDevice reboots the plane is already crashed lol

 

[pjhamill]

But remember, iPads are just for consuming content, not for real work!

Crap, I think I just realized that was sarcasm, my bad.

 

[jason.siegel]

greenwash…

 

[blackcrayon]

Part of me hopes there will be two iPads per flight to have a backup

 

[MultiMediaWill]

Dumb idea. When the iPad runs out of battery and/or dies the pilots won't be able to navigate the SIDS/STARS when on departure or arrival.

 

[Torrijos]

But remember, iPads are just for consuming content, not for real work!

Exactly!
I don't understand how fanboys believe that any major company would invest millions of dollar to integrate iOS devices in their system.

 

[GQB]

I love the idea, but certainly hope that both the pilot and co-pilot are each carrying one. Anything electronic can fail.

 

[RoelJuun]

****, I think I just realized that was sarcasm, my bad.

Sarcasm my friend, sarcasm.

Edit:
Damn you're quick!

 

[FireWall0400]

Just does not work below 10,000 feet

 

[tinkafoo]

Gives a whole new meaning to Airplane Mode.

 

[pjhamill]

Sarcasm my friend, sarcasm.

Edit:
Damn you're quick!

When you hear it all day every day and people actually mean it, it can be hard to detect the sarcasm.

 

[GQB]

greenwash…

So you'd rather that they didn't do this?

 

[Yelmurc]

I think the print industry is going to really start hurting in a few years.

 

[Sofabutt]

I call ********. iPads aren't saving on fuel by cutting weight.

Complete ********.

Not only that, but everyone knows that you always have to have a hard copy of whatever you are trying to use for an electronic device. So the maps are there on the plane weather an iPad is or not.

 

[GQB]

Dumb idea. When the iPad runs out of battery and/or dies the pilots won't be able to navigate the SIDS/STARS when on departure or arrival.

Um, you do realize that cockpits have electricity generated by the ENORMOUS TURBINES strapped to their backs, right?

 

[Small White Car]

Gives a whole new meaning to Airplane Mode.

And we have our thread winner already!