Modern communication
I have days (currently actually) when it’s a little more difficult laughing at this joke of ours then others. On this tour I need to fill out Report A, then scan it with the cam scanner, then email it to the laptop that goes with the aircraft, then download said report and save it in the “Report A” folder, then load it back up on the company lap top where it will be added to Report B (which I also just filled out – which literally has the same information on it, yet it’s on a different company form for a different company) so they can both go together to 5 different people. At least this year we got rid of Report C which was pretty much only a prediction of what the crews here think “might” be happening tomorrow. That doesn’t include updating 2 iPads (2 in case one breaks) and the currently applicable navigation data for the country I am in, plus the GPS(‘s).
Now, depending on the upload times here in the bush, this process takes anywhere from 20 min up to 5 hours.
I might be dating myself but I remember a time when we had a chart (which always worked, even if you left it in the aircraft in the sun all day) and we faxed a sheet with the days flight times to one fax number.
Ok, so bring on the pro and con arguments. Let’s hear (read, rather) them.
Technology ain’t what it used to be… Some days it’s better. For the manymany other days, I still have my slide rule from high school and know how to use it. I have also learned the basics of using an abacus, and have two of those. Now I,m learning t communicate with Morse Code.
Bring on the Zombie apocalypse!!!
Just last night I happened to be in a training session for my new tutoring job. They went over logistics like this, after each tutoring session we are to fill out a report online, and we were given instructions of what to do if it glitches up. For the actual timesheets, we would fill it out on a piece of paper – I found that to be a relief. I may only be 21, but I still sometimes think the older, analogue way is sometimes easier. (Well for me anyway, I’m sure it’s easier for the accountants and back-office people when everything is already in the computer.)
It’s because when you faxed in the report, an office admin had to fill out Reports A and B and then fax them to the 5 people. But they realized that you don’t have that much to do after a day’s flying and it was cheaper to pay you to do the reports then it was to pay for an admin.
BTW, have you tried to send the file over Bluetooth to the laptop? It would save time on that first upload/download.
Hi,
I ama volunteer in the back office of our local flying club in Germany. And since I am also the backup IT maintainer I personnally feel connected to this strip.
Well, For our HQ and flight OPS it is pain in the a** to run throu several lists written in paper and to hack them into ourIT system to process it. So for example if you rent a club airplane and you refuel it you enter the amou8nt in the list of the fuel pit. After you flight you will of course fill out the logbook and a form for your flight time. Now finace has to put that all together to now how much every body has to paid at the end of the month. The maintenence guy has to go over the logbooks over and over again to keep track of the flight time of each aircraft. The pilot is writing the same stuff down at least three times. For all involved it is a hack of work!
With the upcomming season we want to switch to computer based systems. The benefits we hope to get are that a pilot needs to enter his data only once anymore and all back office peaple have it digitalized already. But i agree. it depends on the system how much easier it makes you live. Most IT systems I’ve seen so far have such on ovload of functions and restictions that it actually takes you longer to accomplish a task compared to paper.
So as a pilot, AFIS and a hobby programmer I advocate for good computer soltions because they can make our live easier! But if we use them in the wrong way they won’t!
So far, greetings from rainy northern Germany.
Florian