Delta Replacing Flight Manuals with Surface Tablets

Frosty Piss writes "Delta Air Lines plans to buy 11,000 Microsoft Surface 2 tablets for its pilots to replace the heavy bundles of books and maps they haul around now. Delta says the Surface tablets will save it $13 million per year in fuel and other costs. Right now, each pilot carries a 38-pound flight bag with manuals and maps. Other airlines, including American and United, have been buying Apple's iPad for that purpose. One reason Delta picked a Microsoft device was that it's easier to give pilots separate sections for company and personal use, said Steve Dickson, Delta's senior vice president for flight operations. Another reason for picking the Surface tablet is that Delta's training software also runs on the same Windows operating system as the tablets, reducing the need to redo that software for another device, Dickson said."

Comments

My experience....

[Frosty Piss]

Here in AMC (Air Mobility Command, USAF) we use the iPad with an OtterBox case. Hope there is a tough case for the Surface, because even is a nice jet like the C-17, these things take a beating.

Re:My experience....

[Cryacin]

They're being given a Microsoft Surface instead of an iPad. They're already dead inside.

Re:My experience....

[jones_supa]

Yet another example how people think they can get by with a tablet but just end up rebuilding the laptop.

"personal use" on flight-critical device

[smash]

... what could possibly go wrong?

Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device

[bondsbw]

Separating personal use from professional use is better than mixing them.

Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device

[fustakrakich]

Yes, we've seen what angry birds can do...

Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device

[Old-Claimjumper]

Sorry, Wrong!

The FAA requires up-to-date charts appropriate for the routes being flown. The FAA has approved these as legal substitutes for printed charts as long as they are current (at Least IPads are, I assume Delta will be getting approval for these things).

So unless they are also carrying the "38 pounds" of paper charts, these things ARE flight critical devices by definition.

Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device

[bill_mcgonigle]

Not what flight critical means...

perhaps not to the FAA's definitions section, but to muggles it sure seems critical to have maps and operations guides always available.

These people are absolutely insane if they allow the devices to make a network connection to anything but a controlled updates server. Windows zero-days are real and common.

I sure hope the Delta security folks got their recommendations in writing.

Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device

[smash]

Pretty much my line of thinking. Whilst in theory, iOS devices are also breakable, the comparison for instances of malware for the two platforms is night and day.

Also, by default, on iOS, all applications are sandboxed. Whilst this may be true for metro apps on Windows 8, it most certainly is NOT true for non-metro applications.

But in any case, I'd seriously suggest not running personal software on a device such as this irrespective of that. For a device in this role, I'd be locking it down tighter than fish's arse-hole - to the point where "personal use" beyond access to the corporate e-mail system would be pretty much impossible anyway.

Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device

[segin]

TFA says they're buying Surface 2 tablets, not Surface Pro 2. Which use ARM processors. Which cannot run malware designed for x86. Which mostly invalidates your argument.

Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device

[93 Escort Wagon]

You needn't worry - these are Surface tablets.

The flight crews have no interest in using them for anything personal.

Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device

[Michael Woodhams]

As I understand it, normal practice is that the pilot stays with the same plane throughout their shift, unless technical issues require the airline to substitute another plane. Most pilots are only allowed to fly one type of plane. (They can retrain for a different model, but this takes a month or two. It isn't something you study up on a lay-over.) So they aren't going to fly a 737 in the morning and a 767 in the afternoon. (There are exceptions. The 757/767 pair and the A330/A340 pair were designed to have nearly identical cockpits so that pilots could swap between those types at will. Also, a few pilots are current on more than one type.)

It makes sense - the pilots need as about as much downtime between flights as the planes do. If your schedule involved swapping pilots between planes, you'd get even more disruption by delayed flights than currently.

"Co-pilot" is a misleading term. They are both pilots, one is captain and the other is first officer. Both are trained to do anything that needs to be done. 50% of take-offs and landings are performed by first officers rather than captains. (The non-flying pilot will be talking to ATC, troubleshooting technical issues and assisting the flying pilot in other ways.)

Re:"personal use" on flight-critical device

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much my line of thinking. Whilst in theory, iOS devices are also breakable, the comparison for instances of malware for the two platforms is night and day.

Your statement is technically correct, but with the opposite meaning of what you think. This is the ARM-based non-Windows compatible Surface we are talking about here. I follow security and haven't seen any reports about malware for this platform yet. And it has significant protection in the new app/API model, it does run all apps in sandbox, and only running signed code.

Not saying it is malware proof, and if people here have links to in-the-wild malware for ARM Surface I'd be truly interested to be corrected. But since there definitely are malware out there for iOS, this is currently the platform of these two on the negative side of your "night and day comparison" regarding malware.

Delta pilots don't want Surface.

[GrBear]

Considering the pilots fought to keep the iPads and didn't want Surface, there's more going on behind the scene here.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/30/delta-pilots-fought-against-deal-to-replace-ipad-flight-bags-with-microsoft-surface

Re:Delta pilots don't want Surface.

[girlintraining]

Fanboy site takes one person's opinion and stretches it across entire group of people, fills rest of article with cherry-picked fluff from other sites.

While I applaud efforts to modernize aircraft guides, etc., I have to wonder if these will perform as well as regular print would in certain emergencies. Violent vibration is often a precursor to engine failure, for example, and anyone can tell you that trying to view an LCD that is on a vibrating surface is nearly impossible; Have they tested how well pilots can use this device in such an emergency?

I'd like to know more about the testing that has gone into how well these devices integrate into crew functions during an emergency -- is it as fast? Faster? Will it function well during, say, an explosive decompression (or will the display shatter)? Can it be read in direct sunlight, or when heavy smoke is in the cabin? What procedures are in place to deal with sudden device failure -- do they have backups, one per pilot, one per crew?

So far all I've heard is the benefits to Delta, the corporation: Reduced fuel costs. What I haven't heard of is how this affects flight safety. And to be clear, Delta doesn't have a great record when it comes to this -- AirTran and Southwest Airlines routinely beat them out, and these are budget airlines. Delta aspires to be the go-to for frequent business fliers, and those tickets are at a premium. Delta has routinely shown it is more profit than safety oriented, to the point that airlines with much smaller budgets routinely beat them on maintenance, training, and flight safety.

Well, Delta... did you already prepare a press release for when it's discovered that an inability to access critical checklists during an emergency because of device failure or lack of training wasn't your fault? Or have you done the responsible thing and made sure there's redundancy and adequate training? I know which one costs more... the question is, which one did you pick.

Surface no longer minor player

[Marqis]

Now MS has sold 11,023 tablets!

Re:A third reason is they gave it to us free

[phantomfive]

I can tell you, I hate Microsoft for both rational and irrational reasons. But there is one area that Microsoft beats out the competition, and that is backwards compatibility. If you want to write software that will still run in 10 years, then choosing carefully among Microsoft technologies is a decent way to do that. So if I were Delta, and were deciding whether to do this on iPads or Window Tablets, I would also choose the Windows Tablet, because Apple has demonstrated they have no longterm (or medium term) commitment to backwards compatibility. That is especially true since they already have a codebase set up to run on Windows. Remember that the tablets themselves are likely the cheapest part of this whole operation.

The best would be Linux tablets, because then you can own the whole software stack. The only drawback is the UI situation on Linux........

Not flight critical

[Michael Woodhams]

My understanding* is that many airlines are doing this, and the flight critical standard and emergency check-lists are still kept in hard copy. The material no longer on paper will be things like approach maps for a few hundred airports, and manuals for seldom-adjusted aircraft systems. Should such documents be required but unavailable due to misfunctioning tablets, air traffic controllers and the airline's dispatch centre would be able to assist by radio.

If there is a real pilot in the house, perhaps they could comment further.

* I am a non-pilot with an interest in aviation, so I try to follow such developments via internet news sites.

Re:A third reason is they gave it to us free

[LynnwoodRooster]

And in two years, once the Surface 2 gets certified, what happens? Delta is now flying with 2 year old technology... whoopie.

If two years scares you, I pray you NEVER look at the age of some of the flight electronics in the cockpit. Some of those designs and products are over two decades old!

Possible reasons?

[onyxruby]

Microsoft would have offered a very sweetheart deal pricewise for this.

From Delta's standpoint it would also have the advantage in that almost nothing runs on it, meaning that people aren't going to muck with it install crap software and malware on the Surface RT is all but unheard of. They also almost certainly would have offered some type of enterprise management tools for the tablets from MS.

Enterprise support for the Ipad is a royal pain at best and tools are quite limited. The app store is oblivious to the concept that a computer could be owned my a company instead of a person. Support issues go far beyond these and their IT department doubtless didn't want to deal with it.

I'm not endorsing the Surface RT and I've certainly gone on the record here about how it's a terrible tablet. I'm just explaining the logic behind the order. They certainly could have made a much better choice than the Surface RT.

Turbulence ahead

[Solandri]

Another reason for picking the Surface tablet is that Delta's training software also runs on the same Windows operating system as the tablets, reducing the need to redo that software for another device, Dickson said."

Considering they bought the ARM version of the tablet, someone's going to be very disappointed (and probably in a lot of trouble) when they discover that it does not run the same operating system as their training software. At least not unless their training software only runs on an extremely limited number of low-power computers.

Good news is, Microsoft's deception campaign to trick people expecting to run Windows apps into buying their ARM OS is working.

Re:A third reason is they gave it to us free

[Decker-Mage]

I support a lot of businesses that have little to no interest in the latest hardware or ripping out and replacing their software. That came about due to them putting all their (financial) eggs in a DOS/Windows/... basket and a total commitment that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I have no idea why you are using WINE when Dosbox does a pretty damn wonderful job of running the legacy (antique) software, especially games and productivity software. I just spent the day here segregating software by category and one of the major ones is legacy Microsoft.

I'm running Windows 3.11 over DOS 6.22 here with no problems on a latest and greatest Z77 motherboard which I selected precisely due to the fact that it seems to be last machine with both floppy disk and IDE drive plugs on the motherboard. It's a weird job, but someone's got to be able to do it. Oh, and Turbo C++ runs on all versions of Windows to date here. Real handy for a quick filter/translate hack.

Don't hire Steve Dickson

[tooyoung]

In other words, think long and hard about having Steve Dickson make purchasing decisions for your company in the future....