Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Funny how our NYC to Paris to Dubai to Maldives flights all had 220 Volt power at the passenger seats, so you could plug in and use a laptop never mind recharging an iPad.

It seems a lot of the commenters here haven't been on a modern passenger plane lately.

Do planes have usb plug in yets for charging? And do the planes offer volt converters so some idiot doesn't cause a short in the system by jamming in the wrong type of plug (is that even possible?)?
 
The primary use for an iPad is entertainment. It IS a toy in 90% of peoples minds.

Flying an Airplane is a serious thing. You have countless lives in your care.

Yes I know you think it's cool and are hypnotized by the big touch screen.

But I don't care, I don't want my pilot distracted by a stupid toy!

I'm certain it has never occurred to the entire industry that flying an airplane is a serious thing. If you're sure the iPad is onboard just for the cool factor, and will cause planes to simultaneously drop out of the sky, I think you owe it to public safety to call Jeff Smisek, UA president/CEO, in Chicago. Call collect, operators are waiting.

Or, you could just read a little more about the whole issue, including some knowledgeable posts from industry insiders in this thread.

Успокоиться, Rasputin.
 
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.

All you need is a less fat passenger per flight to save 38 pounds. Or 5 slimmer air stewardesses...
 
36.5 pounds save 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3,208 metric tons :eek:

That's incredible, I wonder if there is anything else that can be done to reduce weight. :)


making everyone go to the bathroom before lift! lmao:D
 
Funny how our NYC to Paris to Dubai to Maldives flights all had 220 Volt power at the passenger seats, so you could plug in and use a laptop never mind recharging an iPad.

It seems a lot of the commenters here haven't been on a modern passenger plane lately.

The last flight I was on had 12Vdc under the seat, every other row unfortunately, but they let me move as the flight was empty.
 
Dumb response. Each aircraft will have a set of paper Jeppesen charts, for the unlikely event the each pilot's iPad battery is low, or the iPad fails.

If both the pilot and co-pilot are getting one iPad plus another one for redundancy, that would mean there will be four iPads in total. How likely is for four iPads to simultaneously fail or run out of batteries?
Why can't the cabin have charging docks for the iPads?
Did anyone notice the cases, specially the one on the right looks like it has a spare battery? Could someone identify it?
 
Distractions are dangerous.

You do know commercial aircraft fly themselves 99% of the time and when something does go off the alarms are loud and obvious. I'm sure they have been distracted with books, and other devices for some time now. This will add nothing new to the mix except maybe keep the pilot awake more. :p
 
re-read what I wrote.

Please read what I wrote.

Funny how our NYC to Paris to Dubai to Maldives flights all had 220 Volt power at the passenger seats, so you could plug in and use a laptop never mind recharging an iPad.

It seems a lot of the commenters here haven't been on a modern passenger plane lately.

No, I just design power systems for modern Airplanes (like the 787 for example).

You have multiple busses in the aircraft. Cabin Busses (for passengers and such) and various primary and secondary busses (for flight and cockpit power). Changing and adding loads is a nontrivial affair for items in the cockpit.
 
Last edited:
1)Nice pitch for Apple

2)Come on...the 38 pound reduction is another Let's Go Green crapola from yet another company. Technically, with everything else being equal (all flights are not equal), sure, saving 38 pounds must amount to some fuel savings...but you're telling me saving 38 pounds on an AIRPLANE carrying hundreds of people and thousands of pieces of luggage...all amassing to about 800,000 pounds. Lots of carry-ons weigh more than 38 pounds! Babies weigh more than 38 pounds! Different weight people on each flight...etc.

Again, nice sales pitch ra ra ra for saving the earth from paper consumption and saving that $.02 on fuel. But the real answer for UA using the ipad was all in the lets-finally-go-digital rather than the weight savings. It's all about companies, in any shape or form, reducing paper and improving business processes and efficiencies through computer use.

I don't disagree, altho if it saves a gallon of jet fuel per flight x 35,000 flights per day = $38 million per year. PS--those are some big babies.
 
And that's why airlines want to charge fat people more. And they should.

Are you suggesting they charge by the pound? For your luggage and carry on as well? Should someone tall get charged more than someone short? Men more than women? Just curious about this and how it would play out...

I think the issue is that they are selling you a seat to go from X to Y and not the fuel you consume to go from X to Y so they need to charge everyone who is buying a ticket under the same conditions the same price.

Not saying that they shouldn't charge by weight (even though it would screw me a bit).
 
Maybe you wouldn't do that.

But who's to say someone won't, especially if the simple Jailbreak exploits work on this iPad as well?

Also, Who said they would be all that locked down?

I am pretty sure every iPad will be locked down with a VERY STRICT enterprise provisioning profile that prevents every app but Jeppesen (or other approved apps) from running. This also includes removing access to Safari, Mail, etc. In the provisioning they can also specify SSIDs and security that the iPad will only be allowed to access.

If the iPad were somehow defaulted out, I think the next crew would notice and the offending party may have some explaining to do. If personally held, I'm sure turning it in with the provisioning profile missing will cause the need for some explanations.

I'm not saying it is impossible, you can restore the OS on any iPad and do what you want with it, but the risk for the employee is probably too great of a risk. I'm sure something is being signed when they are handed one.
 
The primary use for an iPad is entertainment. It IS a toy in 90% of peoples minds.

Flying an Airplane is a serious thing. You have countless lives in your care.

Yes I know you think it's cool and are hypnotized by the big touch screen.

But I don't care, I don't want my pilot distracted by a stupid toy!



I gave my lil niece the ipad with the charts and mannuals installed she looked at me and said no fun!!!!!!! lol

rephrase it IS ALSO a toy..... that can do (add statement here)......

a computer is a toy too windows especially with all those game so let me get this straigh mac cant play games AND be productive at the same time thats why windows rocks ..... IPAD can play games and be productive, games are for children with no life.... the more I write the more enlightened I become thank you for changing my wrong way " Mr. Gates"
 
The reason this rule is applied, is that in the early days of cell phones, the FAA determined that some devices would cause certain types of fire alarms to report fires when no fire was present. As such it's mostly their way of "better safe than sorry".

FYI here's an old IEEE paper that discusses concerns for interference from personal electronic devices (PEDs) on commercial airlines.

Do Portable Electronics Endanger Flight? (IEEE Spectrum Sept 1996)

certainly technology has changed since the paper was written (they mention laptops with CPUs running 133MHz - how quaint!), however you can see reasons why you might worry about possible interference with critical systems during takeoff and landing. Take a look at figure 2, you can see the frequency bands of many of the important avionics. Common electronic devices use or generate clock frequencies & harmonics across the entire range of frequency bands.

one quote from the article:
Most at risk among these systems are those that have antennas located at various points outside the skin of the aircraft to pick up the navigation and communication signals. "Those are the instruments that we cannot harden because they are built to receive very small signals," said Dave Walen, manager of electromagnetic effects at Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, Everett, Wash. "We rely on those sensitive receivers to pick up small signals in space. And that is the primary concern we have with carry-on electronic devices."

while I'm at it, here's a brief FAA presentation that illustrates the concept of both intentional and unintentional transmitters in PEDs

anyhow, contrary to popular belief, there is some science behind the concerns of EMI interference onboard planes. Maybe the risk is extremely low, but I guess neither the FAA nor the airlines want to 100% guarantee every passenger's (unknown) device won't cause some sudden momentary loss of a navigation system during landing approach... OTOH they could easily test 2 iPads in the cockpit, running under specific conditions, during specific phases of the flight.
 
The Eiffel Tower in the background...nice touch.

This is exactly what I was talking about

Everyone realizes pilots are fairly tech savvy right? We all own smart phones, laptops or iPads anyway and carry them in our bags, which are kept in the cockpit. If a pilot is unprofessional, he doesn't need a company provided digital "flight bag" to be so. Having these iPads changes nothing if a pilot is "unprofessional". However, the iPad does enhance flight safety by making access to information quicker and more efficient, actually reducing distractions in the cockpit. Try searching through multiple manuals looking for some important reference via multiple indexes. Searching in a digital data-base will be so much quicker and efficient, which is ultimately safer and less distracted.
 
The primary use for an iPad is entertainment. It IS a toy in 90% of peoples minds.

Flying an Airplane is a serious thing. You have countless lives in your care.

Yes I know you think it's cool and are hypnotized by the big touch screen.

But I don't care, I don't want my pilot distracted by a stupid toy!

I'm assuming you are being sarcastic, so I'll laugh! :D

I'm sure you are aware that pilots don't flight commercial planes the same way people drive cars.

The iPad is whatever you want it to be. For a toy, it has made me thousands of dollars already. Therefore, it's my favorite toy. :D
 
Do planes have usb plug in yets for charging? And do the planes offer volt converters so some idiot doesn't cause a short in the system by jamming in the wrong type of plug (is that even possible?)?
Since you can't run a laptop off USB it makes no sense -- OTOH you can plug in a cell phone charger into a normal plug. All modern computing/phone devices are 100V~240V & 50/60Hz -- and I'm sure they have heavy duty circuit breakers in case of a short.
 
FYI here's an old IEEE paper that discusses concerns for interference from personal electronic devices (PEDs) on commercial airlines.

Do Portable Electronics Endanger Flight? (IEEE Spectrum Sept 1996)

certainly technology has changed since the paper was written (they mention laptops with CPUs running 133MHz - how quaint!), however you can see reasons why you might worry about possible interference with critical systems during takeoff and landing. Take a look at figure 2, you can see the frequency bands of many of the important avionics. Common electronic devices use or generate clock frequencies & harmonics across the entire range of frequency bands.

one quote from the article:
Most at risk among these systems are those that have antennas located at various points outside the skin of the aircraft to pick up the navigation and communication signals. "Those are the instruments that we cannot harden because they are built to receive very small signals," said Dave Walen, manager of electromagnetic effects at Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, Everett, Wash. "We rely on those sensitive receivers to pick up small signals in space. And that is the primary concern we have with carry-on electronic devices."

while I'm at it, here's a brief FAA presentation that illustrates the concept of both intentional and unintentional transmitters in PEDs

anyhow, contrary to popular belief, there is some science behind the concerns of EMI interference onboard planes. Maybe the risk is extremely low, but I guess neither the FAA nor the airlines want to 100% guarantee every passenger's (unknown) device won't cause some sudden momentary loss of a navigation system during landing approach... OTOH they could easily test 2 iPads in the cockpit, running under specific conditions, during specific phases of the flight.


That was back in the days... Antennas are mainly located on the outside, otherwise these will be shielded by the metal of the plane.
If the problem with interference was so critical, then electronic devices would not be allowed at all. Also, have you considered how "polluted" are the airwaves? Planes approaching a big city would be crashing everywhere if these were so sensitive to interference.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.