American Airlines Chooses Flight Animation Software for Re-playable Debriefing

French software company CEFA Aviation saw its first large airline customer to adopt their electronic flight bag application, CEFA FAS, allowing American Airlines pilots to virtually review flight data on their tablet after landing. The addition of the app to the company's approved EFB ecosystem follows the move last summer to roll out issued devices to personnel throughout the company, expanding the program to ground crew, support, and passenger facing  personnel in a bid to streamline interconnectivity.

Flight crews will be able to check prior performance after a flight and reproduce the conditions in any phase, especially helpful when reviewing FOQA or FDM events. The app generates a rendered animation of the aircraft, its position in flight, and the cockpit conditions drawn from raw binary data, flight data monitoring systems, or similar software. The move is a part of American's new safety approach, as Operations Safety Director Neil Raaz describes. “By choosing CEFA AMS, we are now able to advance the Safety-II approach in a practical way in our operations. This progressive new debriefing capability will help promote a culture of continuous self-improvement and reinforce American’s safety-first mentality into each and every flight.”

American's selection could pave the way for similar moves with other carriers, if running the system is suitably simple, quick, or hands-off. Many pilots issued various whiz-bang adjuncts are familiar with what gets ignored when behind schedule, and a time-consuming app activation could see the system relegated to use only when convenient. If used, the app advertises a precise cockpit display, realistic rendering of 3d terrain, pilot hands, and flight controls. (It should be said, imagery is "realistic" to the standards of a tablet, pilots accustomed to panoramic home flight sims with 1-terabyte terrain packs could find it wanting). With built-in nav charting, even overlays, company SOP integration, and airport familiarization functions, the suite could be a helpful adjunct to new fresh right-seaters as they try to pregame an upcoming flight or review their work for lessons learned.

FMI: www.cefa-aviation.com