Light at the end of the tunnel!
Today I called AIDU to make a complaint about the new Emergency and Unplanned Diversion FLIPS. Firstly I was going to use the Feedback section on their website but strangely it was inactive.
Anyway, apparently letters were sent out 3 months ago to all customers informing us of this change. How we as users weren't informed I don't know. I suspect our flight planning has to take a hit for that one.
What we have at the moment is a stopgap for a future product. I was informed by the Flt Lt who brought the current ones in what was going to happen.
The old Vols 1 - 7 were 'supposed' to be for Emergency and Unplanned Diversions as it states in the small print on the inside cover. This meant you always had to check the loose leaf aerodrome booklet to make sure you had all the plates for that airfield. Due to numerous incidents where crews didn't have the plate for a certain approach or didn't have a ramp plan are why the changes are taking place.
The first change is the renaming of the books to reinforce the point that they are not for planned sorties. However, that in itself will also change.
The end product which 'should' hit our shelves by the end of Jan is for 2 books to cover the UK only. A North one and a South one. There will be the option to have them in the format of the old yellow TAPs or a hard backed binder, ie, 1 for Flt Planning and 1 for the Nav Bag. Importantly it will be as comprehensive as possible and cover all airfields and all the plates for that airfield.
Along with this there will be other books under the name of 'Emergency and Unplanned Diversions' which will cover the likes of Norway, mainland Europe and Iceland.
When this comes into place I think that they may actually have a user friendly product.
However, as usual, the main problem we have had so far is a lack of communication. Hopefully this photocopying and printing b****x will soon end.