3 ms·
Most IFE stuff is aftermarket. Boeing was aiming to make things like Wi-Fi standard across all 787s. I'm not sure to what extent IFE was part of 787 plans. I m
by com2kid 12y ago
Most IFE stuff is aftermarket. Boeing was aiming to make things like Wi-Fi standard across all 787s. I'm not sure to what extent IFE was part of 787 plans.
I mostly worked on the Electronic Flight Bag, which is a hilarious case of Boeing realizing that paper flight bags were asinine, and then coming up with an industrial strength solution to the problem of carrying what amounted to a few PDFs on board an airplane.
Last time I checked (years ago) airlines were just moving to iPads whenever possible.
(A flight bag has hundreds upon hundreds of pages of paper that are required by law to be on board an airplane with the pilot, everything from safety literature to information on the current flight, it is a huge hassle)
Again the problem here is, if Boeing ships something stock, the FAA equivalent in every market a plane will be sold into has to agree to every decision made. If a single regulatory body anywhere declares that iPads are not safe for use onboard an airplane, well, the entire idea gets scrapped. This happens to a lot of good ideas.
If Boeing had its way, we'd all have in flight cellular, Wi-Fi, and more, as options on every plane trip we took. Boeing spends a lot of time and a lot of effort on what they know will likely be futile efforts to improve the passengers' experience. But they try anyway. Everyone I met working there flat out loved airplanes with the same zest and zeal we all here share about technology.
- joezydeco 12y agoThe latest flightbag systems look a bit more sophisticated than a fancy PDF reader on a tablet. Here's a glimpse of the flightbag that Lufthansa is using on the B747. It actively maps plane position in the terminal among other things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=2m4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=2m4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=13m43s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhXXjNybx6A&t=13m43s (FYI, PilotsEye.TV on YouTube is incredible if you enjoy geeking out on airplane stuff. They somehow convinced a few European carriers to mount cameras all over the cockpits and talk to the pilots in-flight. There are DVDs as well but I think they're all in German. Check out the A340 that loses an engine in the air. I don't think that's ever been publicly filmed before).
- com2kid 12y agoTrue! But the paper books ended up being replaced by ipads in some cases. The EFB does other stuff as well, but the effort around getting all the papers onto it versus "use an iPad" is rather amusing imho.
- joezydeco 12y agoFrom what I understand, pilots spend countless hours updating their books with technical updates, procedure changes, and map revisions. And you hope that each one is 100% up-to-date when they fly. I think the EFB is a great innovation.