Look up On the fly in
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Colloquial use

In colloquial use, on the fly means in a hurry, generally involving haste or carelessness. Something created when needed.

Ice hockey

In ice hockey, particularly in organized leagues where the teams have substitutable players (examples include the National Hockey League), the majority of line changes occur "on the fly", that is, while play is still ongoing. Players leap over the boards as quickly as possible as their line is substituted in to avoid any prolonged shifts and to ensure that fresh players remain on the ice as often as possible. Ice hockey, known simply as hockey in areas where it is more common than field hockey, is a team sport played on ice. ... “NHL” redirects here. ...

Computing term

Computer storage

On-the-fly is also a term used when making a copy of a removable media (e.g. CD-ROM or DVD) directly, without first saving the source on an intermediate medium (i.e. a harddisk); for example, copying a CD-ROM from a CDROM drive to a CD-Writer drive. The CD-ROM (an abbreviation for Compact Disc Read-Only Memory (ROM)) is a non-volatile optical data storage medium using the same physical format as audio compact discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive. ... Size comparison: A 12 cm Sony DVD+RW and a 19 cm Dixon Ticonderoga pencil. ... Typical hard drives of the mid-1990s. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

When used in reference to encrypting data on the fly (for example, where data is encrypted as it is written to disk and decrypted automatically when read back again), the acronym OTFE is typically used. On-the-fly encryption (OTFE) is a term often used when referring to disk encryption software. ...