[youtube]http://youtu.be/8CBjlO_CwRA[/youtube]
U.S. Air Force is the official name of the air division of the American army, and in the next 10 years it hopes to save over 50 million dollars for the purchase of 18.000 iPad tablets from the Apple company. The use of tablets instead of classic maps would save fuel worth $750.000 annually, and another nearly $5 million will be saved for renouncing contracts regarding the printing of flight manuals that are offered to pilots.
We're saving about 90 pounds of paper per aircraft and limiting the need for each crew member to carry a 30 to 40 pound paper file. It adds up to quite a lot of weight in paper.
According to a manager of the program that distributes bags of manuals for aircraft, replacing them with iPad tablets would make the planes 220 KG lighter, their place could be taken by equipment or armed soldiers. The idea of the Americans is not really new, the commercial airlines do exactly the same thing in the idea of reducing the operating costs of the planes and since the US Air Force is doing it, then surely others will do it too.
