A321
Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Human Factors
FAA line check; FAA examiner states he's the office EFB 'Guru' checked iPad for currency and found my iPad TOC out of currency. FD-pro was okay; but I did not have the iPad TOC update from yesterday. The last update of iPad TOC was from the week prior. I had been working five days straight. I did a three day; two day combination. I stated I had an early check-in the day prior and that I thought we have been told NOT to attempt to update with hotel wifi. He states he's never heard of that and informed both me and the Captain (also out of date); that we were not in compliance with SOP's and that we must update iPad TOC with our personal 'hotspot' from cell phones.....in the cockpit; or we were not going anywhere! We complied and synced our iPad TOC apps during the pre-flight.I had/have no idea how long 'syncing' will take for each update I perform; and choose to do them at home or in ops when I have a long amount of time. On the morning of the early check-in; and unsure of the time requirement to update/sync I choose to report to the aircraft instead of starting an update for an unknown amount of time. We had a busy day and on the overnight I didn't want to trust the hotel wifi.My only suggestion to the iPad system is to have a data plan attached with each individual iPad so as to be able to update as needed at anytime; anywhere as required or necessary. I do not feel pilots personal cell phones and data plans should be expected to be utilized to comply with FAA/SOP update guidelines.
My iPad Table of Contents (TOC) was not current as noticed by the FAA inspector occupying the flight deck jumpseat. The FAA inspector showed me how to use the personal hotspot on my iPhone to update my iPad TOC while in the cockpit and still at the gate. The FAA inspector also explained the requirements necessary to keep the TOC current for flight. We departed the gate on schedule. I was unaware that my iPad TOC was not current when I began my flight sequence the day before.
A-321 flight crew is informed by an FAA examiner that their iPad electronic table of contents is out of date and must be updated prior to gate departure. This is accomplished using iPhone personnel hotspots at the examiners direction.