Keeping A Pilot's Maps Up-To-Date Is No Simple Matter

Because 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."

Did You Know? During the late 1920s/30s, Elrey Jeppesen took his handwritten sketches of the airports he had flown to in his $500 ex-army Jenny bi-plane and made copies for his friends - which led to the founding of leading flight information firm Jeppeson Sanderson, Inc.

Because aircraft navigation and flight safety documents are still predominantly on paper, it's quite a task getting them to pilots around the world - as I discovered when I spoke to Ismael Diaz, head of the publications division at Atlas Air, Inc, New York. "We used to have 6 or 7 full-time employees working solely on sending out and revising flight safety and navigation information for our flight crews," he told me.

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
Running this procedure in-house was adequate. It certainly met safety standards. But was not necessarily the best way to do it. After consultation, Atlas Air decided to outsource the revision tasks to Data Conversion Laboratory, Inc, (DCL), who were already converting hard copy manuals into XML for the airline.

"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
Besides looking after the revision of air and flight safety manuals for Atlas Air, DCL also provides a high tech tracking service for all revision shipments.

"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?
Having flight information in electronic format would clearly make the whole process simpler. But will the Jeppesen ever take the plunge and go electronic?

"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

Read more about technology and data conversion at DCL Library.