Laptops Replace 'Brain Bags' in Some Cockpits
Mar 26, 2002, 6:27 am
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Laptops Replace 'Brain Bags' in Some Cockpits
NEW YORK -- In the cockpit of a JetBlue Airways plane here at John F. Kennedy International Airport, pilot John Washington is preparing for takeoff the way few other pilots do: He pulls out a sleek laptop computer and starts punching in data.
Armed with a small printout from the airline's dispatch department, the pilot enters basic information such as the outside temperature, destination, fuel load and number of passengers. The software crunches the numbers, and in seconds spits out how much engine thrust the crew should apply and which runways they could use, based on weather conditions and the weight of the Airbus A320.
"It would take a while to do it the old-fashioned way," using a fat book of numbers and a calculator, says Capt. Washington. Plus, he adds, "the computer is idiot-proof."
Get ready for the paperless cockpit. To cut costs, increase safety and decrease airport delays, several carriers, including Southwest Airlines and Austrian Airlines, are switching to laptops or other computing devices to replace manual preflight calculations, which can be error-prone. While the new equipment raises its own safety issues, early adopters think they are on to something.
The laptop systems offer real savings, proponents say. Airbus estimates that honing takeoff calculations can slash as much as 5% from the maintenance and operating cost of a jetliner, worth millions of dollars over the life of a plane. That is because traditional paper charts offer generalized rules of thumb for calculations, which means pilots add some extra thrust on takeoff to insure a wide safety margin. Since the computer churns through calculations specific to each takeoff -- such as the number of bags in each cargo bin and the runway length -- it tells the pilots exactly what their thrust settings and takeoff speed should be. That helps save fuel and lighten engine wear, as well as decrease noise...
All of JetBlue's 289 pilots tote the company-issued laptops, as do many pilots at Austrian, Finnair, Dubai-based Emirates and some divisions of Germany's Lufthansa. While JetBlue developed its own software, Austrian and some of the others are using materials produced by Airbus for its planes. Boeing Co. has a product called Laptop Tool that is in use at more than a dozen airlines, which it declines to identify...
Plane makers, for their part, say the future is paperless. Airbus is integrating the capabilities directly into the cockpit of its 550-seat A380 superjumbo, which is now in development. Boeing says it intends to incorporate into its cockpits entire "electronic flight bags" through which pilots can receive and generate information about their flights. Boeing is installing a demonstrator model in one airline's 777 aircraft and is in negotiations with a couple of customers, a spokesman says. Southwest is considering the development of its own electronic flight bag once regulatory issues are resolved and costs of the equipment and software come down.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1...5Fprimary%5Fhs
Armed with a small printout from the airline's dispatch department, the pilot enters basic information such as the outside temperature, destination, fuel load and number of passengers. The software crunches the numbers, and in seconds spits out how much engine thrust the crew should apply and which runways they could use, based on weather conditions and the weight of the Airbus A320.
"It would take a while to do it the old-fashioned way," using a fat book of numbers and a calculator, says Capt. Washington. Plus, he adds, "the computer is idiot-proof."
Get ready for the paperless cockpit. To cut costs, increase safety and decrease airport delays, several carriers, including Southwest Airlines and Austrian Airlines, are switching to laptops or other computing devices to replace manual preflight calculations, which can be error-prone. While the new equipment raises its own safety issues, early adopters think they are on to something.
The laptop systems offer real savings, proponents say. Airbus estimates that honing takeoff calculations can slash as much as 5% from the maintenance and operating cost of a jetliner, worth millions of dollars over the life of a plane. That is because traditional paper charts offer generalized rules of thumb for calculations, which means pilots add some extra thrust on takeoff to insure a wide safety margin. Since the computer churns through calculations specific to each takeoff -- such as the number of bags in each cargo bin and the runway length -- it tells the pilots exactly what their thrust settings and takeoff speed should be. That helps save fuel and lighten engine wear, as well as decrease noise...
All of JetBlue's 289 pilots tote the company-issued laptops, as do many pilots at Austrian, Finnair, Dubai-based Emirates and some divisions of Germany's Lufthansa. While JetBlue developed its own software, Austrian and some of the others are using materials produced by Airbus for its planes. Boeing Co. has a product called Laptop Tool that is in use at more than a dozen airlines, which it declines to identify...
Plane makers, for their part, say the future is paperless. Airbus is integrating the capabilities directly into the cockpit of its 550-seat A380 superjumbo, which is now in development. Boeing says it intends to incorporate into its cockpits entire "electronic flight bags" through which pilots can receive and generate information about their flights. Boeing is installing a demonstrator model in one airline's 777 aircraft and is in negotiations with a couple of customers, a spokesman says. Southwest is considering the development of its own electronic flight bag once regulatory issues are resolved and costs of the equipment and software come down.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1...5Fprimary%5Fhs
