Flight Options Has Paperless Cockpit


Flight Options has refitted all 88 aircraft in its fractional ownership fleet with Jeppesen's JeppView paperless cockpit, and is enhancing its cabin communications and entertainment systems as well.

Ohio-based Flight Options keeps ownership costs down by buying only used aircraft. Its fleet has eight models ranging from the CitationJet to the Gulfstream IV, with quarter-share acquisition prices from $790,000 to $5.75 million.

"We're the value play," says chairman and CEO Kenn Ricci.

The company has worked with Jeppesen to expand the functionality of the JeppView system to include aircraft performance, electronic maintenance and operation manuals, and aircraft wiring diagrams, allowing for easy maintenance at multiple facilities.

Installation of the paperless cockpit will improve fleet readiness, enhance safety, reduce pilot workload, and free up cabinet space formerly used for books and charts to make room for "owner amenities."

That's important to Flight Options, as it strives to offer the most attractive and customer-friendly interiors it can in its fleet of used business aircraft.

Flight Options was among the first to offer DVD players, says Ricci, but has found handling the DVD movies themselves, and especially keeping new ones available in aircraft that don't often return to base, to be far from easy. "It's a very tedious management issue," he said.

His answer? Installation of a hard-drive-based, video-on-demand system allowing 60 to 70 movies to be stored on each aircraft. Flight Options has also wired all of its aircraft for the Internet, in anticipation of new systems allowing true broadband communication.