On a recent flight with a pilot friend of mine, I noticed yet another way the ipad has become more than just an entertainment and Facebook browsing device. My good friend Allan brought his iPad 2 and a leg strap along. After we got buckled in, the ipad went on the lap and up on the screen came a gps-enabled navigation application Foreflight. After watching how he used it for a minute, it was readily apparent how perfectly fit flight charts are for the iPad. Knowing how poor my battery life is on my iphone, I do have concerns about having a dead battery during flight but Allan didn't seem too concerned.
After learning a bit about how Allan uses it for private aviation, I did some research and discovered that American Airlines has adopted iPads for exactly the same use. Watch the video and you will hear that by replacing paper navigation maps/reference materials, they believe fleet-wide that they can save a sizeable amount of fuel dollars (the typical bag of maps that pilots carry weighs approximately 25 pounds each). Thankfully, the iPads will not come with wifi so your airline pilot won't be tempted to play Words with Friends.
