Those flight plans sure look like XKCD comics from a distance.
Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed
81–90 of 124 posts
Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
More over, isn't this just a manual? I mean, for most normal situations, the pilots know what to do, so even if the backup also died, chances are pretty good that they would land without problems, I imagine.
Maps too, from what I hear. The problem is scalability. If no one carried maps, everyone would have to talk verbally and take notes with ATC for five minutes for every landing to make sure nothing had changed. If only a couple planes pester ATC then the system will keep up. It would be safe enough. What are the odds of an inflight emergency requiring a diversion at any instant? Pretty low. So if it happened to one pl…
Charts, not maps ;)
Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed
#83My iPAD and iPhone also crashes frequently since iOS 8.2+ They totally hang and then you need to reboot it by holding power and home. I'm switching to Android.
My anecdotal evidence against yours, I haven't experienced a single crash on my iPad(s) in three years.
My anecdotal evidence supports OP's and againts yours. My Ipad crashes more frequently with each iOS upgrade. My wife's Ipod touch is even more prone to crash that the Ipad. I just gave up with both iOS and Android (I gave the Ipad to my son). It turns out I only needed a phone and a kindle paperwhite after all.
Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed
#84I understood it was illegal to depend on electronic equipment in the air?
This is not true. In fact, we've built our entire business on the fact that pilots can use iPads while flying. www.foreflight.com
Thanks, interesting, and thanks for understanding my point :)
I'm pretty confident that pilots are required to be able to navigate with pencil and paper flight map, in case of equipment failure.
As such, I'm surprised that airlines would allow iPads to be a critical failure point.
I wish you good luck with your business, which I'm confident is highly valuable.
Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed
#85Can anybody here estimate the money lost due to late flights, crews, etc? I don't know where to start from but I'd love to compare it with the costs of keep using paper.
As a former iOS Developer for American I can say that while there is a rather large effect on the entire network, it pales in comparison to the savings gleaned from having the iPads.
I couldn't give specific numbers on the lost revenue here. It could be anywhere from a few thousand to several hundred thousand dollars. But there are people at the airline who analyze the cost of delays and they can be pretty significant - more so if this occurred at fleet launch in the early morning (though that doesn't seem to be the case).
Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aircraft approaches are issued every 90 days. To stay up to date you need to have a book of these 'plates' for every region of the U.S, or a subscription to a service that sends you paper updates. If this happened in flight they would either get ATC to read them the plate, or check with ATC that whatever outdated plate they had was still accurate. Obviously though this is a pretty big technical error on the part of J…
Thanks for the mention, elmin. Can confirm ForeFlight is not involved.
can confirm - foreflight rocks
Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed
#87I think I remember reading here that an airport was able to function even after there computers went down since they kept backup printouts of entire flight schedules. Seems like a pretty big contrast.
Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
More over, isn't this just a manual? I mean, for most normal situations, the pilots know what to do, so even if the backup also died, chances are pretty good that they would land without problems, I imagine.
Maps too, from what I hear. The problem is scalability. If no one carried maps, everyone would have to talk verbally and take notes with ATC for five minutes for every landing to make sure nothing had changed. If only a couple planes pester ATC then the system will keep up. It would be safe enough. What are the odds of an inflight emergency requiring a diversion at any instant? Pretty low. So if it happened to one pl…
> If every plane in the air does this simultaneously, you'll overload ATC and probably get someone killed.
We've already had a test run for this, and it worked fine. 9/11 involved exactly that scenario - every flight in or heading to the US had to make for the nearest airport and land immediately.
Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? It saves a tonne of cash ($1.2 million per year), and has led to a few dozen flights delayed , ever. It's wasteful to force the pilots to carry around 30lbs of paper which is out of date every few months, and which is not safety critical.
> Why? It saves a tonne of cash ($1.2 million per year), and has led to a few dozen flights delayed, ever. In total? That's nothing.
Well, airlines have to very aggressively optimise for efficiency with everything they do. They have huge revenues and very little in the way of profit (about 5%).
It'd be foolish for them to not save money when they can.
Re: Some American Airlines planes are grounded because the pilots’ iPads crashed
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maps too, from what I hear. The problem is scalability. If no one carried maps, everyone would have to talk verbally and take notes with ATC for five minutes for every landing to make sure nothing had changed. If only a couple planes pester ATC then the system will keep up. It would be safe enough. What are the odds of an inflight emergency requiring a diversion at any instant? Pretty low. So if it happened to one pl…
> If every plane in the air does this simultaneously, you'll overload ATC and probably get someone killed. We've already had a test run for this, and it worked fine. 9/11 involved exactly that scenario - every flight in or heading to the US had to make for the nearest airport and land immediately.
But those planes all had access to their charts and weren't reliant on ATC for navigation.