Patent ID: 8825498

Claim:
A method of determining whether an aircraft is ready to fly or should be repaired in light of damage and/or malfunction to the aircraft, the method comprising: generating, by a computer, coded fault data comprising a sequence of single-digit integers that encodes types of damage/malfunction and locations of damage/malfunction according to a decision tree, wherein the generating the coded fault data comprises: presenting, on a cell phone of the user, a series of questions regarding the damage and/or malfunction according to a traversal of the decision tree based on answers to the series of questions, receiving, at the computer, a sequence of numeric key entries entered on the user's cell phone and corresponding to the answers to the series of questions, and generating each digit of the coded fault data as each numeric key entry is received in response to each of the series of questions presented; generating, by the computer, an instruction or recommendation based on the coded fault data, wherein the instruction or recommendation is encoded in one or more integers; appending, by the computer, the one or more integers encoding the instruction/recommendation to the sequence of single-digit integers of the coded fault data to generate amended fault data; storing and classifying the amended fault data according to its sequence of single-digit integers that encodes types of damage/malfunction and locations of damage/malfunction; electronically transmitting the amended fault data for review in deciding whether the aircraft is ready to fly or should be repaired; and translating the amended fault data for entry in an aircraft disposition report form.