Aircraft records play a vital role in an aircraft’s general operation, the buying and selling process, and proving airworthiness. Since these documents are essential, storage plays a vital role in how secure and safely paper records are preserved. Even today, these paper documents are stored in closets and fire proof safes. Now that the aviation industry’s digital transformation has quickened, technology methods are now more readily accepted to protect your asset.

For aircraft owners who want to digitize their records and securely transport them to local scanning centers, deciding on which transportation mode can be daunting choice. So let’s look at some of the safest ways to transport your precious aircraft records to your scanning vendor.

Onsite Scanning by Consultant (no transportation required)

Onsite Scanning by consultants have been a very popular, but very costly option to scan one’s aircraft records. This method involves paying the consultant per day, the hotel and airframe and a per page scanning fee. This option does give you access to trained professional who would carry this task with expertise and confidentiality. Since the job is conducted from your location, transportation is not needed and the whole process minimizes loss or damage.

Pros: Records do not leave your work site

Cons: Cost is expensive

Personal Drop Off at Scanning Center

For years, self-drop-off has been the way most aircraft owners transport their aircraft records to a scanning center. This way involves the owners moving the boxes of paper records and taking it to the closest available aircraft scanning vendor available. For some people, this seems to be the best way to digitalize your records, as long as the scanning partner is SOC 2 and HIPAA compliant and locked down from regular public traffic. We recommend not using retail centers like Kinkos and other shops.

Pros: Very secure and reasonable cost

Cons: Adds to your “To Do” list and records do leave your work site for 2-4 days

Bonded Courier

Another way aircraft records can be transported to a scanning center is through bonded courier. Bluetail offers this service for a nominal fee to make your experience safe and secure. This means that the local scanning vendor usually enlisted provides a bonded or trusted courier service that collects the aircraft records from the aircraft owners. Discretion is provided. This has been the most trusted way to undertake records transportation if you do not do it yourself.

Pros: White glove service that is very secure and at a reasonable cost

Cons: Records do leave your work site for 2-4 days

DIY Scanning

For those owners that like to do-it-yourself and keep the records at your work site, buying a scanner with OCR software is another option for you. This can take weeks to perform and usually doesn’t get finished due to regular work load pressures pushing this down in priority. Scanning, organizing and “OCR’ing” is not for people with novice tech skills.

Pros: Low cost, records never leave work site

Cons: Takes several weeks to scan and organize documents and usually never gets finished

In conclusion, the digitization of aircraft records is the safest way to assure and keep your credentials intact for a long period of time, so choose the best option that suits your needs. If you have any questions about the options Bluetail offers, please reach out at Contact Us.