Delta Replacing Flight Manuals with Surface Tablets 244
Frosty Piss writes "Delta Air Lines plans to buy 11,000 Microsoft Surface 2 tablets for its pilots to replace the heavy bundles of books and maps they haul around now. Delta says the Surface tablets will save it $13 million per year in fuel and other costs. Right now, each pilot carries a 38-pound flight bag with manuals and maps. Other airlines, including American and United, have been buying Apple's iPad for that purpose. One reason Delta picked a Microsoft device was that it's easier to give pilots separate sections for company and personal use, said Steve Dickson, Delta's senior vice president for flight operations. Another reason for picking the Surface tablet is that Delta's training software also runs on the same Windows operating system as the tablets, reducing the need to redo that software for another device, Dickson said."
My experience.... (Score:5, Informative)
Here in AMC (Air Mobility Command, USAF) we use the iPad with an OtterBox case. Hope there is a tough case for the Surface, because even is a nice jet like the C-17, these things take a beating.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Not flight critical (Score:5, Informative)
My understanding* is that many airlines are doing this, and the flight critical standard and emergency check-lists are still kept in hard copy. The material no longer on paper will be things like approach maps for a few hundred airports, and manuals for seldom-adjusted aircraft systems. Should such documents be required but unavailable due to misfunctioning tablets, air traffic controllers and the airline's dispatch centre would be able to assist by radio.
If there is a real pilot in the house, perhaps they could comment further.
* I am a non-pilot with an interest in aviation, so I try to follow such developments via internet news sites.
Re:A third reason is they gave it to us free (Score:2, Informative)
If that's true, they why doesn't my old Windows software work under Vista or Win7 or Win8? Why do I have to use WINE to run my applications? I mean there's a zillion "compatibility" options and none of them work. But WINE, that works everywhere.
Why do my windows applications work better on a Mac with WINE from MacPorts than Windows 7 or 8?
People who say Microsoft has backwards compatibility have never tried it! You've just read the sales literature... Oh, and by the way, the word gullible is written on your ceiling.
Re:A third reason is they gave it to us free (Score:5, Informative)
And in two years, once the Surface 2 gets certified, what happens? Delta is now flying with 2 year old technology... whoopie.
If two years scares you, I pray you NEVER look at the age of some of the flight electronics in the cockpit. Some of those designs and products are over two decades old!
Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device (Score:4, Informative)
As I understand it, normal practice is that the pilot stays with the same plane throughout their shift, unless technical issues require the airline to substitute another plane. Most pilots are only allowed to fly one type of plane. (They can retrain for a different model, but this takes a month or two. It isn't something you study up on a lay-over.) So they aren't going to fly a 737 in the morning and a 767 in the afternoon. (There are exceptions. The 757/767 pair and the A330/A340 pair were designed to have nearly identical cockpits so that pilots could swap between those types at will. Also, a few pilots are current on more than one type.)
It makes sense - the pilots need as about as much downtime between flights as the planes do. If your schedule involved swapping pilots between planes, you'd get even more disruption by delayed flights than currently.
"Co-pilot" is a misleading term. They are both pilots, one is captain and the other is first officer. Both are trained to do anything that needs to be done. 50% of take-offs and landings are performed by first officers rather than captains. (The non-flying pilot will be talking to ATC, troubleshooting technical issues and assisting the flying pilot in other ways.)
Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty much my line of thinking. Whilst in theory, iOS devices are also breakable, the comparison for instances of malware for the two platforms is night and day.
Your statement is technically correct, but with the opposite meaning of what you think. This is the ARM-based non-Windows compatible Surface we are talking about here. I follow security and haven't seen any reports about malware for this platform yet. And it has significant protection in the new app/API model, it does run all apps in sandbox, and only running signed code.
Not saying it is malware proof, and if people here have links to in-the-wild malware for ARM Surface I'd be truly interested to be corrected. But since there definitely are malware out there for iOS, this is currently the platform of these two on the negative side of your "night and day comparison" regarding malware.