Boeing Company. The forum will be named for Sanford “Sandy” McDonnell and his family. McDonnell Aircraft is one of Boeing’s heritage companies. In addition to the Air Force Academy and several important military operations, Colorado also hosts a cluster of aviationrelated companies. A statue of one of the world’s best-known aviators, Capt. Elrey Jeppesen, stands in the terminal, which bears his name, at Denver International Airport. And the company he founded 81 years ago, Jeppesen, directs its worldwide operations from Englewood. This Boeing subsidiary, part of Commercial Aviation Services, provides navigational data, operational planning tools and flight-training services to airlines, private pilots, military forces and a range of other customers. Jeppesen started the company after other pilots began buying the flight maps he made while flying for Varney Air Lines. In 36 Boeing Front iers the following decades, “Jepp” charts became a common tool in flight decks and cockpits around the world. At a building near Jeppesen’s headquarters, dozens of employees put together binders full of charts for specific routes flown by airline customers. A nearby printing press hums loudly as it produces thousands of pages for flight-training manuals and related publications. But Jeppesen’s future involves more pixels and less paper. More than a decade ago, the company helped to create the first Electronic Flight Bag for an airline customer. Instead of carrying around heavy chart binders, pilots could store the same information on portable computers, and it could be updated faster and more easily. That idea took a leap forward with the introduction of digital tablet devices, said Kellie Isaac, Jeppesen’s senior product manager for Data Distribution Solutions. “When the iPad came out, it was a game changer,” she said. “Ten years ago, we had 100 customers using DDM (Data Distribution and Management) on 5,000 devices. Now we have 1,000 customers using it on 160,000 devices—and it’s continuing to grow.” Because Jeppesen’s customers work at all hours, the company’s operations center in Colorado similarly is always going. The facility, full of computer stations and big display screens, answers technical support calls and supports the company’s airline customers. The company’s simulation lab, also loaded with computers, supports Commercial Aviation Services’ Digital Aviation division and tries to envision the future tools that airlines will need for navigation and air traffic control. Eman Sadi, business manager for Jeppesen’s Flight Operations, said
Frontiers October 2015 Issue
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