Back in the bad old days of aviation, most pilots had to lug around a flight bag; up to 35 pounds of gear, maps, and other stuff needed to get a plane from point A to point B without, uh, how do we put this, a “midair passenger exchange.” Thankfully, we have iPads these days that remove the need for a flight bag and put all the information in one place. Unless, of course, they glitch out.
According to Popular Science, a popular flight bag app made by Jeppesen has a problem with Ronald Reagan Airport beyond the fact that it’s tiny and takes forever to land. It can’t load the charts properly, which freezes the app and makes the flight plan impossible to load. So, if you had a flight going to or from our nation’s capital, it was grounded.
A fix is coming next week, but until then, pilots are being forced to either use a PDF map, uninstall and reinstall the app to hope it works, or go back to the flight bag. You know, because fixing an app by doing the digital equivalent of whacking it with a stick is something you want your pilot to do mid-flight. Hey, it beats having to go to Dulles.
(Source: Popular Science)