Aviation software gets busy
Computers are everywhere. They help traffic enforcement officers give you parking tickets, and they watch over that frozen dinner in the microwave; why, there's probably one humming away in your home or office right now. With the explosion of the personal computer and expansion of microchip technology, it's hard to imagine a part of daily life that the computer has not touched.
And that includes aviation. Not only has the computer made devices like loran and GPS so useful and, most important, easy to use, but it has influenced everything from aircraft design and testing to air traffic control and FAA records-keeping. Laptop and palmtop computers have brought complete libraries of airspace, airports, and arcana right smack into the cockpit and can be mated to navigation receivers to provide real-time position and flight- management information.
Just as important is the groundswell of sophisticated software products for the home computer. We can hear the stick-and-rudder types already: "If the computer intrudes on my life so much now, why would I want to let it corrupt my flying, too?"
The answer is that the computer can make life easier for the pilot in a number of ways without ever taking away from the wind-in-the-hair romance of aviating. Major categories to which desktop computers contribute their impressive number-crunching skills include: flight planning, weather briefings, flight simulation, education, and accounting.
Using high-resolution graphics and large databases of airport and airspace information, the flight planning programs can help take the drudgery out of the task. With any of a number of flight planning programs, you can simply enter your departure and destination points, and the computer will figure your time enroute, fuel used, and even prescribe the best route to take. Moreover, the programs will take winds-aloft data and estimate your groundspeed for the trip, making the information all the more accurate.
As much as pilots like to joke about the winds-aloft forecast accuracy (or lack thereof), it's been our experience that these flight planners can produce estimated times enroute that match reality quite closely. That's if the wind information is current and the aircraft model accurate.
Some caveats are in order for those just starting out with these newfangled flight planners. First, don't throw away those charts. The programs don't know anything about weather or local terrain, and they may describe routes that you might not want to fly. Also, though many of the programs will depict restricted airspace in graphic form, they will still offer a route right through all sorts of airspace mayhem. Second, take any fuel consumption numbers with a grain of salt, at least until you've made enough trips to compare the computer's output to the actual amount of fuel used. You should already be flying with a conservative reserve (more than just the legal reserves) — don't throw that out the window just because the software gives you fuel burn to the tenth of a gallon.
Flight planning is just one piece of the preflight puzzle your computer can assemble — weather information is another. Two DUAT (Direct User Access Terminal) vendors provide free, FAA-sanctioned weather and flight planning services: GTE DUAT (modem number 800/767-9989) and DTC (800/245- 3828). Basic textual weather briefings and flight plan filing are the cornerstones of the service, and both are free. You need a computer with a modem and some communications software (which usually comes with the modem) to gain access to DUAT, but once online, the menus are straightforward. Moving about the systems is not difficult, and with some practice, you can obtain a weather briefing in very little time.
The beauty of DUAT, and other sources of computerized weather, is that making the initial go/no-go decision is often quicker than waiting on hold for a live briefer. What's more, you can save and print out the weather to take into the airplane, something that's not quite an option when you're madly scribbling information from the flight service station.
A key element of the computerized weather briefings is the ability to get digitized maps of radar returns, surface observations, and areas of bad weather — in essence, to obtain the same charts the briefer sees. Both the DUAT providers make the charts available for a price, and several other firms can transfer the National Weather Service charts to computer with special software. Once you've used the charts on screen, it's hard to go back to the old ways of getting weather.
So you find that the atmosphere simply refuses to cooperate, and that instrument lesson will just have to wait. Don't despair, because computerized "flight simulation" has come a long way from fuzzy, low-resolution graphics that were common a few years ago. More accurately, these programs, which range from simple instrument procedures trainers to full-blown, jet-fighter emulations, are called procedures trainers. They don't have full motion bases and accurate cockpit representation, so they can't be called true simulators. What's more, so far none of the programs has been approved for logging time, so they remain for your education only.
Even so, the realism of these PC-based trainers is amazing and incorporate not only true-to-life airplane responses, but real-world weather scenarios and randomized equipment failures. Pilots of airliners and business jets get regular simulator training, so why shouldn't you?
What's more, to make the most of the high-end procedures trainers, you'll have to have the fastest machine you can afford — for both Mac and DOS users — don't expect the simulators to work well on low-end machines. You will also need some kind of control input like a stick or yoke. Flying, literally, on the keyboard is counterintuitive and frustrating, and even a mouse interface leaves much to be desired.
Flight simulation programs make for time-efficient procedures practice, and a number of test-preparation programs can do the same to help you bone up for the most common written tests. Nowadays, these programs include extensive graphics and a huge database of questions, answers, and explanations and are smart enough to stop hitting you over the head with the same question if you keep getting it right. Further, when you have successfully completed one of the test sessions — generally you can practice, browse, or perform a time-limited self-test — you will get a printed diploma to take to the "real" written.
Not only can the computer get you over the written-test jitters, it can help out with some of the day-to-day drudgery — like being put to work balancing your flying budget. Several programs are available that help compute tax and financial records for flying and put the right numbers in the right boxes for the IRS. Still other programs help flying clubs and FBOs track aircraft costs, profit and loss, and perform scheduling duties. Other uses for the computer in bookkeeping include managing an online logbook. When was the last time an examiner wanted to know how many hours you have as pilot in command of a multiengine amphibian during night instrument conditions? Okay, maybe you don't have any, but if he asked, you could produce a computer- generated and mathematically correct zero. The point is that totaling the various categories by hand would probably take longer than the flight test, unless done in the computer.
By now you surely get the point: Anything that requires crunching numbers or storing and gaining access to vast quantities of information, the computer can do better than you and me. And what with the continued proliferation of the personal computer, the programs that make it all run are getting more and more sophisticated and colorful. If you haven't joined the aviation computing fray, now is the time.
End User, and Proud
Notes of a computer geek
In the early 1980s, a friend — who happens to be a software engineer — urged me to buy a personal computer. I was the perfect "end user," he said (somewhat condescendingly, I thought). No, I protested, I was quite satisfied with my manual Royal typewriter, thank you very much. I'd tinkered with Sinclair and Commodore computers, which stored their programs on cassette tapes (try accidentally running Screamin' Jay Hawkins as a computer program sometime), and I couldn't conceive how my life would be demonstrably improved by the ability to create spreadsheets or databases willy-nilly.
My friend prevailed, however, and I bought one of the very first Macintoshes — a pitifully underpowered machine with 128 kilobytes of memory and a single disk drive. I was surprised, however, to learn how even such a simple device could help improve my productivity and the quality of my work.
I embraced computers to such an extent that I unwittingly developed a reputation among coworkers of being quite the computer geek. I don't have a plastic pocket protector (well, I do, but I wouldn't be caught dead wearing it in public), and I can't program my way out of a recycled paper bag, but I tend to seek electronic solutions to everyday postmodern problems. This is not rooted in a love of technology; my dusty Royal still occupies a special place in my heart. It is based instead on a profound laziness. My friend was right: That's the mark of the quintessential end user.
My electronic bias has extended to my aviation activities as well. I do my preflight planning on my desktop PC. I update an electronic copy of my logbook on my laptop. I use a palmtop computer for in-flight planning. I have used several software "simulator" programs to practice flight maneuvers. I get weather briefings and maps through computer database services. I exchange information with other pilots through a number of online services. In short, I've found a variety of aviation hardware and software that's as helpful to my flying as word processing has been to my writing.
I use these products and services because (1) they save me time, and time often equates to money, and (2) they provide a reality check of things I do manually anyway.
Do manually? You bet. After generating a route plan with a computerized flight planning program, for example, I still spread out my charts and double-check everything. I get a last-minute weather update from a live FSS briefer. In flight, my whiz wheel always resides in my breast pocket, and I practice with it regularly. I still log my time in my battered old paper logbook. And I take semiannual instrument competency checks to make sure that I can execute in a real airplane the maneuvers I practice on my computer.
Does this reveal an inherent mistrust of technology? A schizoid personality? Not at all. It indicates, rather, a choice to use computers for what they do well — math, in one form or another — while continuing to use my brain for what it's been trained to do well — ensuring the safety of my flight operations. Computer batteries go dead, as do aircraft electrical systems; flight planning must be performed at remote wilderness airstrips as well as at home base; and nothing can be allowed to come between a pilot and his basic tasks of aviating, navigating, and communicating.
There's a time for a laptop and a time for a whiz wheel. The great potential of computers is that they give us greater control of time itself, allowing us to devote greater personal resources to aviating, navigating, and communicating.
Sure, I'm a gadget freak, and I enjoy the opportunity to look at a lot of excellent aviation hardware and software — real labor-saving stuff. But the best technology is really nothing more than an extension of our minds, a sophisticated tool, an aid — not a replacement for critical judgment and decision-making abilities. That's how the word processor aids the writer. And that's what being a perfect end user is all about. — Seth B. Golbey
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