TBM owners get upgraded app

The airlines and the military spend billions each year on what’s known as FOQA data—Flight Operations Quality Assurance. It’s a means of collecting data about the airplane and how it is operated and using that to increase safety, predict maintenance problems, and generally make flying more efficient. Daher’s first versions of the Me & My TBM app introduced several years ago had nuggets of that capability, but the latest iteration, Version 4.0, takes it to a new level.

For pilots, the app is like having a coach or mentor in your pocket. After a flight, pilots can review approach speeds, angles, pitch attitudes, and other parameters to understand when they are straying from acceptable norms. The new version of the app presents the data in easy-to-understand graphics and will also email an in-depth report about each flight. It also stores the data so pilots can see over time how they improve or regress against certain approach and landing parameters. The data can be shared with a flight instructor to help develop curriculum for the next training session.

There’s also a gamification element called My TBM Challenge, which allows TBM pilots to score themselves against others in the fleet. Given that pilots tend to be competitive by nature, the effect is to have pilots striving to be the best of the best, which can only help to improve safety.

The app helps maintenance crews as well. The new version automatically sends flight times to the CAMP Systems maintenance tracking program, where staff can monitor the aircraft for upcoming maintenance events and help improve flight scheduling.

The app is free to download at the Apple App Store and Google Play, but is only functional for those who can connect it to their TBM. The features are free to TBM owners.