One of the main problems of today's ALS is the lack of reliable data quality assessment within or shortly after the airborne survey campaign. The paper presents an in- flight quality monitoring tool that allows assessing the quality of the recorded data "on the fly", featuring a real- time processing of the GPS/INS data and the subsequent georeferencing of the laser returns. The tool is capable of displaying the scanning profress in real-time and detecting data gaps immediately after terminating the strip. The paper presents the adopted strategy for data processing and communicating in order to achieve scalable distribution across a network of computers. Further we discuss first experiences with this tool within airborne survey projects that demonstrate its successful application in practice.