Airbus Keycopter - T.I.P.I.
 

Hi all,

I wonder who would be willing to give me some feedback about their experience with Airbus and their T.I.P.I. and Keycopter support - specifically regarding Flight Manuals.....

Subscribed FMs on Keycopter not being up to date (in cases out of date for YEARS) - Factory response extremely slow (on revision and updating - hell, I ran into the first indication of something wrong in July/August (still no response....) - I thought it was just a one off, but it turned out all 4 subscribed manuals are a bloody mess...) - supposedly (and the main reason to subscribe) the Manuals would be UP-TO-DATE, ...access them any time and compare to your actual on-board manual....
BUT - none are!!

Anyone with a similar experience?? How did you fix it? DID you fix it?

Cheers,
3top

I think the current manuals/documents are now on keycopter. Not so good if you want to download or print stuff but pretty reasonable and uptown date for online work. (at least the 135 seems to be). They have also increased the amount of time a password stays valid.

The process to approve a change remains painstakingly slow even though the virtual world we live in could have an update for a correction immediately.
one thing I personally despise, is I print the manual sheets as a way to use it as a checklist for signing off the tasks. The latest revisions remove the manual references when you print, so it makes it difficult to reference what I'm signing back to the manual chapter.
I just angrily make due silently and try not to become a saltier engineer than I already am.

You probably had the auto mailer black listed. We are receiving ours every other day.

Gray, it hasn't change. Unless your updated PDF reader somehow changed setting to skip printing url or objects.

Well,
my problem is really the "up to date"-ness of the Manuals on Keycopter - even if they are slow to update - parts of the manual so far out of date, that I received already the 2nd set of up-date pages?? TIPI is usually right on, but except for the machines that received completely new Flight Manuals recently (e.g. 350B3-2B1) it is very tedious (if not impossible) to assemble a complete and up to date Manual just from TIPI...
Keycopter seems to have some "original" version loaded and they update it - sometimes - I have samples where they updated the most recent changes, but others are still out by 2-5 years....

I would believe that maintaining manuals up to date online (....as this is offered as a "to pay for service" subscription) is a somewhat important, critical and time sensitive thing!!

Now, the machines in question in my case are rather simple to operate (....and partly because of that I am battling with neglected manuals), but I would suggest that with more complex machines things could go wrong rather drastically...

Often it might not be safety directly, but what if a changed procedure is not implemented and results in expensive repair??
E.g. cranking procedure on a 350B3e/130T2 - there was a change that NOW requires to switch on the aux-fuel pump BEFORE cranking.
Initially no pump was required.....
Last I checked on Keycopter (350B3e) that up-date is still NOT in the keycopter manual....

The 1st item I ran into was with the 350B3-2B manual and it seemed like a clerk error. But then there is more and more missing updates
Of the 4 subscriptions we maintain NONE is up to date throughout! Some I only found because I had a stack of updated pages (of which some were already obsolete by the time I got the chore handed) - so effectively - I need to score through the whole TIPI stack to try to find updates (....as you know Airbus likes to be ..."complex" with different lists for "approved pages", "pages not requiring approval" and "supplements")

After finding all 4 messed up, I wonder if that is not epidemic throughout the keycopter available service??

I don't want to know how deep that goes into complex machines - 145, 365, 225, etc...

At some point it becomes "insurance sensitive" - something goes wrong and insurance doesn't pay because it was not "procedure as mandated"....

I think, if I pay for a subscription - with the explicit purpose (...and confirmed by email correspondence) to have the subscribed Manual available online 24/7 and UP-to-DATE.... I should be able to trust Airbus to deliver, shouldn't I??

3top

Noticed a problem with the Pilot's Checklist - or whatever Airbus call the FRCs - for our elderly 135s (one of the emergency drills required the pilot to refer to the RFM, whereas the equivalent drill in the P2/T2 version correctly gave just the cockpit actions). Contacted the excellent/ v. knowledgeable pilots at Airbus Oxford who usually know the answer to most of our questions and they suggested we use our Keycopter subscription to find the answer/ organise the amendment. While I was delving into the previously-unknown (to me..) world of Keycopter, the Airbus fella called back to tell me that our older model of the 135 isn't actually on Keycopter(!), and instead gave me the contact details of the tech librarian who was able to start processing the amendment.

T.I.P.I. seems to work well enough with the latest amendments though the paper copies take a sweet while to rock up except last time where they popped through the letter box before the inbox.......

My personal opinion: I find charging for Flight Manuals paper/digital flies in the face of flight safety.....

3top,

You are correct - I doubt that you can build a complete RFM from TIPI / Keycopter.

LOAP will tell you the current manual status.

Use the LOEP from the last update and verify you have the correct pages in the manual. It lists them all and their amendment number.
The problem is when a few amendments get skipped or missed.

RVDT,

....that's exactly what I am doing!
SOME of the manuals are complete on TIPI and one can assemble them from that. But KEycopter of course would be fantastic, IF the manuals were up to date!
From the LOEP (approved, no-approval required and Supplements) I am crosschecking with our manuals.
So far - I found 1 occasion, where the Keycopter Manual was updated, BEFORE the TIPI had it in the list. The actual paper-up dates arrive about 2-3 months after they appear on TIPI.

Now the problem I have with Keycopter - they do update, but it seems the base manual is way out - so now I have manuals on Keycopter, that are a total mess!!


3top

3top,

Keycopter is a trial for sure - I have met the people behind it - it seems that the geeks and the people at the coalface are disconnected somehow?

Apple, for example, does customer service pretty well - I told them "why don't you just copy it?" Blank stare in return. They get paid to "reinvent the wheel" like so many in that business.

They are getting better but that is a "relative term."

Customer = a person who buys goods or services from a shop or business

Service = the action of helping or doing work for someone

It's not rocket science.

RVDT, I agree!
However - even if Keycopter is a trial (whether it is worth the effort or not) - once you CHARGE for a service, it should be what it says... complete, UP-TO-DATE manuals.

And I agree with the copy thing too!

Airbus must have a MASTER-library, where the ONE book is, that gets modified/updated and from where all copies get addressed (....sending out paper update pages to every SN).
Once the change process is finished and approved, the MASTER gets altered/updated accordingly - WHY NOT just load/copy the WHOLE Master-book onto Keycopters??
[It seems like the geeks are just updating the Keycopter copy like any other Flight Manual in the field - and like many a Manual in the field is mess, keycopter manuals seems to be too!!]

3top

Floater,

I have a subscription for the 4 listed below and all of them are not up-to-date:

AS350B3 - 2B
AS350B3 - 2B1
H125 (AS350B3 - 2D)
EC130B4

3top