Useful fleet technology is battle cry at Air Force lab.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Brief Article

The proliferation of paperwork in the cockpit can be a nuisance for military pilots. Air Force aviators returning from Afghanistan in recent months, for example, have complained that there are too many pieces of paper--checklists, work orders and maps--that they must carry during missions.

The solution may come in the form of a "digital kneeboard"--a handheld computer where the information from all these pieces of paper can be stored electronically, said Col. Stephen J. Duresky, commander of the Air Force Air Expeditionary Force Battlelab, in Mountain Home, Idaho.

The battlelab, an organization created to find practical, common-sense technologies for the fleet, is starting a program called PacMan (Pilot-Aircrew Cockpit Management).

"This project could be very exciting," Duresky told National Defense. "It would be taking a lot of the paperwork out of the cockpit." This concept "makes total sense for a pilot. ... A Palm Pilot that sits on your knee."

During the next two years, the Air Expeditionary Force and Air- Mobility battlelabs will spend nearly a million dollars to digitize cockpit flight information normally found in the form of paper products on aircrews' kneeboards and in map cases. If the project is successful, the labs jointly will make a case for the Air Force to fund this technology for the entire fleet.

"Results of this effort will feed into both Air Combat Command and Air Mobility Command as they consider changes to and the development of concepts of operation, concepts of logistics, and operations requirements documents," said a battlelab proposal submitted to the Air Combat Command. The system could be "hot synched" to a local area network, so charts, technical orders and flight publications can be more easily updated, said the proposal. Battlelab officials said PacMan will minimize paper in the cockpit and allow the pilots and crewmembers to devote more time to the mission, and reduce the amount of time spent searching for information. "During in-flight emergencies or while engaged in combat, it is often impractical and sometimes unsafe to rummage through hard copies," said a battlelab document. "Further, it is difficult to read printed information while wearing night-vision goggles."

The estimated cost for developing, testing and demonstrating a preliminary capability is $920,000. Most of the funds are for sled testing, integration and independent studies.

Duresky noted that PacMan was one among several projects that his...