United Airlines Deploying 11,000 iPads to Pilots as Electronic Flight Bags

I was going to post the same story...

Thanks Last Mrk for that interesting posting.

My daughter flys for United and sez now that the pilots are carring less weight they will be able to chase her more easily. She doesn't know if she likes that.

Gary

I have to be quick to beat you kch50428 to tech stories I've noticed.

I would hope there would be at least 2 or 3 on board. One each for the pilot and co-pilot and one as a backup. They could fail as electronics does!

There is at least one school district in the area (Columbia, SC) that has assigned all their students, I think it is a middle school, ipads instead of textbooks. Even with insurance against loss/damage they are showing a savings versus textbooks. Kids book bags are a lot lighter too. Tests will be taken on the ipads and electronically graded for near instant feedback. I don't know if it will work out as planned but it seems like an interesting experiment. I hope it works.

Anyone know if these iPads are wi-fi only or 3G, and if so, Verizon or AT&T? I looked at the press release and a few other stories, but no one had this detail. Just curious as to if they went cellular and which carrier they chose.

I'm guessing wifi - the info needed on them is likely stored directly on the iPad itself as PDF or some similar document files - and they'd have ample access to wifi when really needed for updates, or - they sync them to a computer... if they do have 3G, I'm guessing international pilots would have AT&T for their global advantages... and domestic pilots would be better off with Verizon for their domestic network advantages.

The iPads are loaded with Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck, more info here: http://goo.gl/rRFYD

According to the article, they have in-flight wi-fi.