United Continental replacing pilot manuals with iPads

United Continental replacing pilot manuals with iPads

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gadgets/08/23/united.ipad.mashable/index.html

“…Each iPad, which weighs less than 1.5 pounds, will replace approximately 38 pounds of paper operating manuals, navigation charts, reference handbooks, flight checklists, logbooks and weather information in a pilot’s flight bag. A conventional flight bag full of paper materials contains an average of 12,000 sheets of paper per pilot. The green benefits of moving to EFBs are two-fold it significantly reduces paper use and printing, and, in turn, reduces fuel consumption. The airline projects EFBs will save nearly 16 million sheets of paper a year which is equivalent to more than 1,900 trees not cut down. Saving 326,000 gallons of jet fuel a year reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 3,208 metric tons….”

“…Our question is: what happens in the event of a device failure? We assume that backup systems will be in place so that paper flight kits or replacement iPad devices will be available in the event of a broken pre-flight tablet.”