I think I wrote this article a year ago....

WHEN CAN I STOP CARRYING CHARTS TO WORK?

I’m sure we’d all love to use the chart bag receptacle in the RJ for something fun, like holding ice for your drinks. But, for now, we still need that space for the 30 – 40 pounds of paperwork we lug around for every trip. We’ve all heard talk about getting an Electronic Flight Bag (EFB), and some of us have even flown in N962SW with the unpowered EFB installed. Wouldn’t it be great to not have to manually update your charts every 28 days, or worry about an FAA certificate action ‘cuz your current chart revision is sitting in an envelope, and not in your binders? How much longer will we be teased?

A few weeks ago, Klen Brooks attended the monthly SAPA meeting in Los Angeles and gave us an overview of where the project currently is. SkyWest is the launch customer to install the DAC International (DAC International) EFB in the CRJ’s, and ship 962 was the guinea pig used to receive the FAA Supplemental Type Certificate. The DAC EFB has already been in service and STC’d with SkyBus Airlines, and Pinnacle Airlines plans to take delivery of some new aircraft in the future with these units factory installed.

Kelvin Hyatt was kind enough to give me some background on the EFB project. Four years ago, he was tasked by Brad Holt to find the perfect magic box. He looked at several, including a system currently used by Fedex. He felt that system was inferior for our needs, since it is a strap-on-your-knee product. He looked at a system from an outfit in Calgary, but they really didn’t have a product yet ready to sell. Plus, what they planned to build was also some type of inflight entertainment system.

Another currently available system cost $25,000, just for the hardware. Yet another system, form Flight Deck Resources, offers a hard mounted single box EFB (meaning the display and computer guts are all in the same box) making it a tad biggish. Horizon plans to use this unit.

And finally, the DAC system, which is also about $25k, but that is the installed price with all the software. In addition, since the system doesn’t use Jeppesen charts, the monthly subscription costs for charts would drop from $165,000 per month, to a little less than half that from electronic chart company MapTech. They have been around for 20 years making nautical charts, so that experience now builds electronic hybrid versions of the government NOS/NACO aviation charts. The data was originally designed to be wirelessly updated, but that was cancelled due to cost and a little problem with patent infringement. It will now be updated with an encrypted USB device.

The DAC product uses two displays, hard mounted to the airframe, with a remote electronic gizmo to run the whole thing. It will allow SkyWest to tailor individual pages to their needs, and add in all the other printed material that we currently carry in the plane, like the MEL or HazMat manuals. It can be used for communications, and even ACARS could go through it (no plans for that, however). When you’re flying along enroute, the map will have your aircraft in the center showing your position superimposed over the jet route charts. The same thing is technically possible with the approach charts, but initially the FAA was against approving that.

Now, in the dust that has settled after the Comair accident in Lexington in Aug 2006, the FAA now endorses that feature. So, a future upgrade to the EFB may include your position on approach plates as well. When you taxi out, you just take your finger and touch the taxiways you want, and they light up. The whole system is as intuitive as looking at a normal book, so there shouldn’t be much training to implement.

These units can be installed at one aircraft per day, if you ask the design team, or one aircraft every 2 or 3 days if you ask the installers. That time equals about $4000 in lost revenue cost per aircraft, bringing the total cost up to about $30k per plane. Total cost for the 190-ish fleet is about $5.5 million. Even a simple guy like me can figure out that if there is an $85k per month is savings over Jeppesen, that little $5.5m investment pays for itself in less than 6 years. That’s good for the company, the shareholders, and for flight crews.

So, when can we expect to have the whole fleet equipped with the new EFB’s? Chip is still negotiating with DAC, and also speaking to United on cost indexing of the real time data this new product can provide. No discussions are pending with Delta, or Midwest. I would think we may be able to get rid of the printers, for further savings, and a completely paperless cockpit. Klen had made mention that United had developed a formula to determine how much it cost them in fuel to haul around 20 pounds of our SkyWest magazines in the back. Using that same formula, he wondered what it would save them when we aren’t hauling 80 pounds of charts and books?

I then spoke with the Steve Davis, of DAC International, and he had this to say; “DAC is proud to have worked with SkyWest, a true industry leader, in the move to the paperless cockpit. The addition of the GEN-X EFB with GENESYS software will give SkyWest pilots a convenient means to access Charts, Plates, Company plates, Minimums, and Manuals with one touch simplicity. Soon the pilot’s flight bag will be a thing of the past as all updates are accomplished automatically and precisely on time.”

Oh, one extra somewhat related tidbit. The company is planning to spend $45k per airplane to install ACARS in the ten Comair birds we fly. Throw away the manual manifests brothers and sisters, we’re going to the 21st century!

It may still be some time further before RJ drivers get to play with the new toys, and I don’t think we will be able to surf the internet at FL390, but I think it’ll be worth the wait. I’m going to the EMB, so I can only dream what that kind of automation is like. Fly safe all.