Over the last couple of years, one of the industries which has really been transformed by the iPad is the aviation industry, where pilots have all of a sudden been able to trade-in their bulky flight bags stuffed with fifty pounds worth of flight manuals and materials for light, thin iPads.
We’ve written a lot of stories about pilots getting iPads (here’s another one!), but we’ve never actually gotten a good look at the iPad set-up pilots are using instead. Consider that remedied.
This video is part of a recent segment from Gadling’s Cockpit Chronicles series, and it features an American Airlines pilot demonstrating his new iPad set-up in the cockpit.
Essentially, each iPad is mounted in the cockpit, with the battery life extended through the use of a Hypermac Battery that can extend the iPad’s battery life by 24 hours. The set-up is then tested in a hypobaric chamber to simulate how the iPad will react to rapid decompression.
Some of American Airlines’ planes have, with this setup, pretty much completely phased out in-flight manuals except for a small booklet on what to do in emergency situations. Not bad, but far from universal: the FAA must test and approve the iPad individually in every type of plane before it can be rolled out to those jets in the fleet.
Source: Gadling
