WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- About 11,000 pilots at United Continental Holdings UAL, +0.69% will begin receiving iPads on Tuesday as the world's largest carrier converts to paperless cockpits. The iPads, built by Apple Corp. [s:aapl], replaces paper flight manuals and navigational charts with applications such as Jeppesen Mobile FliteDeck. Using the iPad should improve safety and efficency becuase pilots will no longer have to thumb through thousands of sheets of paper to find what they need during a flight, the airline said. Furthermore, the move saves 16 million sheets of paper and 326,000 gallons in fuel because of the lighter weight. Alaska Air ALK, -0.10% and American parent AMR Corp. AMR, have announced similar moves.