Alaska Airlines replaces heavy paper flight manuals with the iPad

Alaska Airlines has become the first US Airline ( or first airline in the world according to my knowledge) to replace heavy paper flight manuals with the Apple iPad. This means that Airline pilots will only have to carry a 700 gram iPad (assuming it’s the iPad2 WiFi version) in place of over 11 kilos of paper manuals.

The GoodReader app on the iPad will be used to read 41 flight manuals and other reference materials in PDF format.The aeronautical navigation charts are still not available on the iPad though.

Now I wish kids who go to school carry an iPad instead of really heavy backpack and that hope the pilots have a spare iPad or paper manual as backup. And another item on the pre-take-off check for the pilot –  Charge iPad – Check !