A4A Electronic Aircraft Transfer Records (EATF) working group which defined the initial set of XML data structures for such items as aircraft status record, AD status, repair/damage chart, service bulletin/ modification status, etc., envisions that their initial standard will expand to encompass for forms/reports/ information. The ATA/A4A follows IATA’s larger scope effort of paperless aircraft operations (PAO). While this is done with airlines needs in mind in identifying areas and solutions for a more efficient aircraft operation in all aspects that involve technical operations, it will have an effect industry wide. These operations include the spare parts supply chain, aircraft maintenance needs and logistics, as well as the transfer of aircraft assets. Undoubtedly much of this will filter down into business aviation, and to some degree, general aviation (where applicable) over time. Vendors who service the airlines will use the same streamlined mechanisms for their GA customers, putting pressure on others in this market area to upgrade their capabilities as well. The key point is that the entire
world, across industries, is recognizing the value of standardizing data in order to better be able to exchange, archive and sort it.
COSTS ARE DROPPING One of the major drawbacks in the past was the high cost of maintaining a data storage mechanism. Besides having multiple databases across multiple sets of servers, we need to have backup storage and perhaps a historical archive offline. Many smaller organizations were priced out of this, and could not support a move away from paper records for this reason alone.
Now, storage costs are essentially going the way of paying for any utility, and are no longer a significant cost. Besides the fact that hard disks, disk arrays and other forms of in-house data storage continue to drop appreciably over time, cloud
computing has made the price of data storage extremely cheap. Most anyone can afford to setup an in-house disc mirroring/data backup mechanism and have an off-site cloud-based data backup service. (If disc mirroring is a new term for you, Google this, and
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