cycjec wrote:

I just read that one airline is phasing out flight manuals in paper
book format and replacing them with a popular electronic reader
gadget, which I shall not name.

What could go wrong?

Notice pilots boarding commercial airliners. They will (were) carrying
catalog cases. In those cases were Jeppeson manuals containing information a
pilot might need to know.

For example, if the destination airport is closed - say, due to weather -
and the aircraft has to divert, the flight crew scrambles for their cases
and pulls out the volume containing the alternate airport. They need the
information about runways, approach control, radio frequencies, and lots of
other stuff. For any given airport, the manual may contain several pages of
maps, frequencies, Notices to Airmen (NOTAMS), etc.

As for what could go wrong, there are already two things wrong with the
current system:

First, the manual set weighs about thirty pounds. For a three-man crew
that's almost a 100 pounds of weight and, for approximately 5,000 commercial
flights per day, that's a lot of dross (250 tons) and the necessary fuel to
move it around.

Second, the manuals have to be updated weekly. If the update doesn't get to
the pilot, or he neglects to update his personal binder, we have a
significant safety risk. This risk is, of course, somewhat minimized in that
there are usually two other copies on the flight deck.

Contrast the above with a three-pound iPad that's updated automatically
every day.