AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2014 - 91

P&E

AVIONICS

Paper-less
Where have all the charts gone?

MIKE FIZER

B Y I A N J. T W O M B LY

PAPER CHARTS are
dying.
Read that carefully. They aren't
dead, nor will they
be for some time-
if ever. But they
are in danger of
becoming extinct,
which should come
as no surprise.
Apple's iPad
has provided more
excitement for
the recreational
and light-business-use side of
general aviation
than anything
since in-cockpit weather, and adoption of the
tablet has been considerably faster. Some unverified reports speculate something on the order of
half of all general aviation pilots use an iPad or
some tablet variation.
Naturally, there are consequences to this
rapid technological shift. Chief among them is
a decrease in paper chart sales. A few years ago
the FAA decided to stop selling paper charts
directly to pilots, instead working through a
two-tier dealer network. Sporty's Pilot Shop is
the largest. John Zimmerman is a vice president for the company and he says paper chart
sales are down by roughly half of what they were
only five years ago. "That's a profound shift," he
says. Howie Keefe's popular Air Chart Systems
stopped production last year after more than 50
years in business. The company cited electronic
charting, among other reasons.
One of biggest losers in the charting
game is the FAA's AeroNav Products division.
Depending on who's telling the story, either the
FAA has been losing money because of a reduction in paper chart sales, or the agency is simply

looking to beef up its budget. Regardless of the
original intent, a seemingly innocuous email
from Abigail Smith, then director of business
development for the division, invited stakeholders to a meeting to discuss electronic charts and
possible future pricing.
Smith's email caused a minor firestorm
among developers and the industry, including AOPA. A special committee was convened,
and eventually submitted recommendations
that reflected the user perspective. Many would
say that the huge explosion of the iPad and its
related aviation applications have been caused, in
part, by the free and easy access to FAA charting
data. Although the FAA charges users for printed
aeronautical charts, the agency doesn't charge
software companies (or anyone else) for that
same data delivered electronically.
Smith, now the director of AeroNav Products,
has told AOPA and others that a policy requiring
some charge for digital products will be implemented, but there's been no movement on it for
about a year.
Developers don't like the idea of a fee for digital data because they say it will stifle innovation
by driving smaller companies out of the market
and reducing the subscriber base. There's no
doubt any charge from the FAA would be handed
straight down to the users, increasing the cost
of charting applications by at least a few dollars
a year.
In a sense, the FAA is facing exactly what
every printed publication in the world is
facing. How does one draw revenue from
decreased print sales? Forget about adding
services, at least a few of which the developers are requesting. With fewer sales come new
proposals to make up the money elsewhere.
But paper isn't going away just yet. "GA pilots
we talk to really like sectionals and L-charts,"
Zimmerman says.
AOPA
EMAIL ian.twombly@aopa.org

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2014

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