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Keeping A Pilot's Maps Up-To-Date Is No Simple MatterBecause aircraft navigation and flight safety documents are still often on paper, it's quite a task getting them to pilots around the world - as DCLnews discovered in an interview with Ismael Diaz, head of the publications division at Atlas Air, Inc.
Back in the early days of flying, air navigation was rudimentary at best. Mostly it consisted of looking over the side of your bi-plane's cockpit and hoping you recognized the landscape below before landing. Today the vast majority of aircraft have sophisticated navigation equipment, computers, and radar to help them roam the skies. But it isn't always high tech. The air navigation and flight safety information needed by flight crews to land and take off, for example, is still on paper - despite the growing prevalence of electronic technical manuals that come on CD-ROM or are delivered over the Internet. This isn't due to a luddite attitude on the part of airlines. Far from it. It's due to the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA), who feel that for the most part technology still isn't reliable enough to justify going "paperless."
New and revised information would come in every week from Jeppeson Sanderson, Inc, the world's largest provider of flight information to airlines. The Atlas Air employees would incorporate the updates into the document briefcase, or "kit", given to pilots and co-pilots. The kits would then be shipped out to Atlas aircraft around the world. Big
savings "Outsourcing to DCL was a good move. It saves us over a quarter-of-a-million dollars every year," said Diaz. "It cuts out the salaries and benefits associated with having full-time employees. And saves on telephone lines, computers, and floor space. All of which add up. Not only that, but DCL is doing the job much better than we were in-house." High
tech tracking "We have a tracking database set up, which provides web reports to Atlas Air on the status of each aircraft manual," explains Dina Rosenthal, the manager at DCL who runs the Atlas project. "It tells them the station that the revised kit was shipped to, who signed for it, and which revision should be on an aircraft at any given time. We also keep records on the state of the airway manuals returned to DCL. This is important because constant use means they wear out." The revising of the Atlas manuals - which includes both commercial and Department of Defense flights - is a task with no room for error. "I have a team of four working with me for this project, who are very meticulous. They have to be because the information we're working on is crucial to aircraft taking off and landing safely," said Rosenthal. Not only that, if the information isn't up-to-date or isn't delivered on time, planes have to be grounded. "If a flight crew doesn't get the proper charts, landing, and runway information on time the plane can't take off. And it's very costly to have an aircraft sitting idle waiting for clearance to fly. It's therefore critical you get a reliable revisions service in place," added Ismael Diaz of Atlas Air. Paperless
cockpits? "It might in the future," replied Diaz. "Currently the FAA haven't approved an electronic version of the flight manuals for safety reasons. They want to rely on hard copies because of the risk of computer crashes. The airline industry, however, is pushing hard to go 100% paperless. But it will be a few years before that happens." In the meantime, the mix of low and high tech - the physical revisions and sophisticated tracking done by DCL - is working very well for Atlas Air. So much so that Diaz feels other airlines would benefit from outsourcing their revision needs. "Not only can you save money, but you get better controls and tracking systems. You win all ways round." DCLnews
Editorial
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