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Flight Options Adds Iridium
Flight Options has begun addition Iridium telephone service
to its fleet, most of which is already equipped with AirCell phones.
According to Flight Options vp Jim Miller, AirCell will also serve
as the Iridium service provider. The addition requires no additional
handsets, only the relatively low-cost installation of minimal
hardware.
Miller says aircraft owners in the Clevelandbased fractional
program have been happy with the current AirCell service since
it was first installed about three years ago-adding that the Iridium
addition became necessary as Flight Options aircraft flew in foreign
airspace more frequently. Iridium, he adds, also offers superior
coverage in certain areas and terrain.
The change will be seamless to Flight Options owners, who will continue using
the same handsets and be generally unaware of whether their call
is on the AirCell network or Iridium.
Another of Miller's projects is exploring additional cockpit applications
for the company's electronic flight bags. The EFBs will soon offer
graphical real-time weather, automated trip information, maintenance
and dispatch releases, and aircraft position data. The use of EFBs
for trip information, Miller notes, represents an increase in security,
since paperwork will not be inadvertently left around an FBO or
hotel room.
Miller says the EFBs-which utilize Fujitsu tablet computers-have
eased pilot workloads and allow Flight Options to get greater
utilization out of flight crews and airplanes. Updating paper
charts, MELs and other required paperwork reduces the time available
for flying in the pilots' 14-hour duty day. The brief time required
to perform a EFB update is in keeping with Flight Options' desire
to "minimize ancillary duties of the crew to a bare minimum."
Miller says the Fujitsu devices-which were created for assembly-line
work and census takers-are extremely durable and have performed
well in the field. Each aircraft is equipped with two of them,
and there have been no instances of dual failure since their introduction.
By David Rimmer
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