16 February 2011

Didn't get your DOD FLIPs this month? There's an app for that.


I've often complained about the Army's Electronic Data Manager (EDM), a digital "kneeboard" the size of a brick.  Running on Windows XP and featuring a 133 mHz processor, the device is heavy, slow, counter-intuitive, and must stay tethered to the aircraft to receive GPS data.


I've often argued that an iPad could outperform the EDM, which is based on technology some ten years old.  That's why I was pleased to learn that Jeppesen, the world's leading manufacturer of aeronautical charts, has created a flight information application which includes approach diagrams, maps, departure procedures, and airfield diagrams.  And unlike those that rely on paper charts, there's no need to purchase new maps and approach diagrams every few weeks.

I'm going to give the free trial a test over the next week or so.  More to follow.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the Army, are you legal to fly an Jepp approach with out any agency reviews? In the AF, for us to be able to fly Jepp, our TERPS office has to review and approve each individual approach for our use. This only happened if the coverage in our DoD books was lacking. In USAFE, the TERPS office was more often geared towards approving host nation produced approaches over Jepp ones. All said, it looks like that app and an iPad would be awesome and convenient, but for AF bubbas, institutional change would have to happen first (followed by hell freezing over). Maybe NGA can make something similar?

Starbuck said...

I'd be curious also. I haven't run this by anyone in the standardization department, so it may very well fail. I think that Europe might have slightly different rules...

...with that said, I'd like to see sectional charts and other products adopted into iPad format soon.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, makes too much sense to be fielded. I'm guessing for it to work, you'd have to download the entire database to the iPad, right? Would it be tied to the GPS reception too? Would be a cool "poor man's" moving map display.

Could you as an Army aviator fly a Jepp w/o an institutional (TERPS) review/approval? Curious on how our services differ here.

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Forgot to add: checkout the ForeFlight app. The free trial shows off all the capes you might be looking for, but w/o Jepp approaches.