AMC may get up to 18,000 iPads for crews - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

AMC may get up to 18,000 iPads for crews

The Air Force is considering purchase of as many as 18,000 iPads for Air Mobility Command’s flight crews and trainers.

The hugely popular lightweight tablet computer would replace 30- to 40 pounds of paper flight manuals, navigation charts, checklists and other documents currently carried aboard aircraft, said Capt. Kathleen Ferrero, a spokeswoman for the command at Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

A notice on the Federal Business Opportunities website said the Air Force plans to ask for proposals for anywhere from 63 to 18,000 of the Apple devices or its equivalent.

Called electronic flight bags, the technology would literally put information at a pilot’s fingertips, Ferrero said.

“Picture pilots performing in-flight emergencies … in seconds at the touch of a finger rather than going through their binders.”

AMC has money now for 63 tablets, Ferrero said. Those would be used for field testing. The Air Force would buy up to 17,937 more as the funding becomes available.

“We’ve actually been looking at this for several years,” Ferrero said.

Commercial airlines have been making the switch to electronic flight bags.

United Airlines announced in August it planned to issue 11,000 iPads to all United and Continental pilots, a transition that would save an estimated 16 million sheets of paper and 326,000 gallons of jet fuel annually, the company said in a news release at the time.