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U.S. Air Force Will Save $50M With iPad Electronic Flight Bags
The U.S. Air Force has announced plans to buy up to 18,000 Apple iPads after a six-month trial at Little Rock Air Force Base. According The Street, Apple will spend $9.36 million to give pilots electronic flight bags. (www.forbes.com) More...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
The futility of the made-in-USA rants aside, the platform bigotry is equally goofy. The firm (SOTI) the USAF retained for system engineering of these devices (included in the published price, still under retail) has profitable segments in all four major mobile device architectures. Should the AF have had requirements better served by another platform, SOTI would have happily provided that solution.
A friend and I just finished a 1400nm cross country in a Cherokee. He with his Fore Flight equipped I-Pad... me and my paper charts of which I had to buy at several locations (the ones that still had them at all)....
Needless to say my outlook on the electronic version has changed a bit.. I'm not sure if it was a the "can you take the airplane, I need to refold my chart", or the point click "oh fuel at KXXX is $5.75, lets go there".
While I still pride myself on my plotter and E6b skills, I saw the light on that flight!!!
Needless to say my outlook on the electronic version has changed a bit.. I'm not sure if it was a the "can you take the airplane, I need to refold my chart", or the point click "oh fuel at KXXX is $5.75, lets go there".
While I still pride myself on my plotter and E6b skills, I saw the light on that flight!!!
Hard to get a battery change when it crumps at FL 15. A few pieces of paper might come in handy.
Actually you can charge it off the acft electrics, and a piggy-back spare battery at 2/3 the weight of the iPad will run it 4x longer... You pay your money you make your choice.
my point was not simply a discharged battery, but a failed one- dead and unrechargable. In that case the unit might be inoperable. Everything breaks as some point. The question I meant to raise was what happens when it breaks in flight?
Ahh So, the old MTBF issue. USAF familiar with that one. Transport aircrews each carry kit, and back each other up. I could not tell from this article if SOTI spec'd the protocol this way, but on one system I worked on we had the "mobile device" life cycle tracked by SerNo and preemptively replaced at first service after 3rd standard-deviation MTBF flight. Basically, if the Aircrew is happy I'm happy...
Well, with two on board, simultaneous failures are unlikely. There is no such thing as zero probability, but this might try to push the envelop. (And if there's an FE on board with one....)
Chuckle:) good one...