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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.
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. 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.
