NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's pilots are saving trees, money, and their backs by joining the tablet computer revolution in aviation. Tablet computers have replaced pilots' heavy flight bags, some of which weighed about 40 pounds filled with hard copies of aviation documents. This transition has saved $20,000 to $25,000 in annual paper costs for Dryden in exchange for $600 to $700 dollar tablet computers, which last for years.
Several commercial airlines have approved the use of tablets as electronic flight bags; however, the advantage is even greater at Dryden, where a single pilot may fly several different aircraft including space-limited, demilitarized fighter jets.
Although Dryden has been researching electronic flight bags for years, early models of tablet computers were too slow and lacked enough capability to justify replacing the old pilots' flight bags filled with paper manuals. Now, when a pilot arrives at Dryden, they get a tablet computer.
Of course, challenges come with any change. One challenge was getting pilots to use them. The other challenge comes from transferring data, which is often sensitive in nature, to the tablet.
