iPad glitch grounds AA flights

^^^^ I won't confirm nor deny that I'm at AA ( ;) ), but regardless I'm not on the 737, so I have no clue what happened.

There's nothing magical about the iPad installation - most pilots have a Wifi only 16GB iPad Air 2 (a few early adopters still have earlier versions of the hardware) running JeppFD-Pro for charts, and eLibrarian Pro for manuals. We also have a WSI Pilotbrief app for weather. Everything is stored locally - charts, manuals, apps - all of it. The FAA doesn't yet allow us to turn on wireless once in the air, nor can we use the internal GPS to show our position on any of the maps. That's not to say that it doesn't happen, but it's not approved. So they're completely self contained.

Apps crash and need to be rebooted from time to time. Sometimes an entire iPad will shut down if it overheats from being in direct sunlight for too long. But what happened here is unusual. The paper has been removed from the flight deck, so if both iPads take a crap on the taxi out, there's really no choice but to head back to the gate. There are supposedly stashes of replacement iPads at all the bases, but I've never had to go down that path before. :dunno:
 
kayoh190 said:
^^^^ I won't confirm nor deny that I'm at AA ( ;) ), but regardless I'm not on the 737, so I have no clue what happened.

There's nothing magical about the iPad installation - most pilots have a Wifi only 16GB iPad Air 2 (a few early adopters still have earlier versions of the hardware) running JeppFD-Pro for charts, and eLibrarian Pro for manuals. We also have a WSI Pilotbrief app for weather. Everything is stored locally - charts, manuals, apps - all of it. The FAA doesn't yet allow us to turn on wireless once in the air, nor can we use the internal GPS to show our position on any of the maps. That's not to say that it doesn't happen, but it's not approved. So they're completely self contained.

Apps crash and need to be rebooted from time to time. Sometimes an entire iPad will shut down if it overheats from being in direct sunlight for too long. But what happened here is unusual. The paper has been removed from the flight deck, so if both iPads take a crap on the taxi out, there's really no choice but to head back to the gate. There are supposedly stashes of replacement iPads at all the bases, but I've never had to go down that path before. :dunno:
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How do you guys like the iPads? Delta uses the Surface Pro 2 and its solidly built. I was playing around with Jepp FD and it's a pretty neat app.
 
jordane93 said:
How do you guys like the iPads? Delta uses the Surface Pro 2 and its solidly built. I was playing around with Jepp FD and it's a pretty neat app.
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I like it. Some guys complain because it's just something else we need to carry around, charge at the hotel, etc...but it's nice being able to access everything you need from a flight planning perspective before you ever get to the flight deck. It's also very nice - errr...I mean, it WOULD be very nice if we were allowed to use the features - to see my position on the taxi diagram, and have access to doppler radar enroute. I know, I know, this is all old hat to the GA guys around here, but it's pretty new to us heathen airline types. Well, once its use is approved that is. :wink2:

The biggest issue I have is the screen washing out in bright sunlight, which forces me to take it off the mount and put it in my lap, but that's more of an irritant than anything serious.
 
kayoh190 said:
I like it. Some guys complain because it's just something else we need to carry around, charge at the hotel, etc...but it's nice being able to access everything you need from a flight planning perspective before you ever get to the flight deck. It's also very nice - errr...I mean, it WOULD be very nice if we were allowed to use the features - to see my position on the taxi diagram, and have access to doppler radar enroute. I know, I know, this is all old hat to the GA guys around here, but it's pretty new to us heathen airline types. Well, once its use is approved that is. :wink2:

The biggest issue I have is the screen washing out in bright sunlight, which forces me to take it off the mount and put it in my lap, but that's more of an irritant than anything serious.
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Why don't they allow you to use those features?
 
jordane93 said:
Why don't they allow you to use those features?
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Because they can kill you when the wildly insufficient quality control fails.

I've seen an iPad running Foreflight report wrong positions up to 5 miles while airborne, and while reporting better than 30m accuracy.
 
jordane93 said:
Why don't they allow you to use those features?
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We don't have approval from the FAA yet. They're working on it, supposedly, but I'm not sure what the timeline is. I don't know if this is an iPad thing, an AA thing, or what. Can your Dad legally use the GPS in the Surface?

But as I implied, it's really not stopping people from doing so anyway. :wink2:
 
kayoh190 said:
We don't have approval from the FAA yet. They're working on it, supposedly, but I'm not sure what the timeline is. I don't know if this is an iPad thing, an AA thing, or what. Can your Dad legally use the GPS in the Surface?

But as I implied, it's really not stopping people from doing so anyway. :wink2:
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I was told that ownship position will never be allowed in 121 carriers, period. Do you guys get to see where you are on the taxi charts or no for that too? We can see our position on those, but that's it. All the pilots have their own, plus then we have a backup stored in each ship.
 
kayoh190 said:
We don't have approval from the FAA yet. They're working on it, supposedly, but I'm not sure what the timeline is. I don't know if this is an iPad thing, an AA thing, or what. Can your Dad legally use the GPS in the Surface?

But as I implied, it's really not stopping people from doing so anyway. :wink2:
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Nope they don't use the GPS on the surface. I'm not even sure the Surface has GPS. He really likes using it though. Before he leaves he has me input the flight plan from Flightaware. It's a really neat app and can do alot. No more lugging around approach plates, manuals, etc.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
I was told that ownship position will never be allowed in 121 carriers, period. Do you guys get to see where you are on the taxi charts or no for that too? We can see our position on those, but that's it. All the pilots have their own, plus then we have a backup stored in each ship.
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Jepp Flight Deck would work wonders on the DC-9!
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
I was told that ownship position will never be allowed in 121 carriers, period. Do you guys get to see where you are on the taxi charts or no for that too?
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I haven't heard that, but I can see it being true. Perhaps the FAA isn't ready to allow a consumer grade device act as much more than a glorified PDF reader. We can't use the ownship capability at all. The specific verbiage is:

"Due to FAA restrictions use of any GPS antenna, remote antenna, internal antenna, external antenna, geo-referencing application, map-centering application, or map-centering antenna is prohibited at this time."
 
taters said:
We just started using the digital LIDO charts...hard to admit this but I hope we keep them over the DJepps...that app does have some issues.

The LIDO charts will show your position on the enroute but its BYO GPS feed to make it work..our IPADs dont have the internal GPS.

http://www.lhsystems.com/fileadmin/u...navigation.pdf
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Lido produces some good stuff. Hopefully we'll see more of it...
 
jordane93 said:
Jepp Flight Deck would work wonders on the DC-9!
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We have a GPS anyway, it really isn't that much more than what we have onboard.

kayoh190 said:
I haven't heard that, but I can see it being true. Perhaps the FAA isn't ready to allow a consumer grade device act as much more than a glorified PDF reader. We can't use the ownship capability at all. The specific verbiage is:

"Due to FAA restrictions use of any GPS antenna, remote antenna, internal antenna, external antenna, geo-referencing application, map-centering application, or map-centering antenna is prohibited at this time."
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Oh wow, thats no good. It's nice to have for the taxi diagrams, but it isn't the most accurate thing ever. Hopefully one of these days we get the final approval and can dump the paper charts.
 
taters said:
Rockwell Collins
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OK. The only FMS I was aware that was using a Lido database was Thales, which makes it a huge PITA if you are using any other type charts in conjunction. Our fleet was mixed Honeywell and Thales FMS.

FWIW, the Lido charts are awful (IMO).
 
RotorAndWing said:
OK. The only FMS I was aware that was using a Lido database was Thales, which makes it a huge PITA if you are using any other type charts in conjunction. Our fleet was mixed Honeywell and Thales FMS.

FWIW, the Lido charts are awful (IMO).
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Have you seen the "new " software ? they pretty much made a quantum leap but there are still a few things that seem odd like, no briefing strip and the takeoff minima can be a little inconsistent to find..the cool thing is Lufthansa will completley customize them exactly how you want them..our union made some change request to flight ops and wala..there they are in the latest download...
 
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