Saving BitmapData as jpeg file

I've been working on an AIR image editing application for a few weeks now and i'm suddenly realizing that there seems to be no easy way to save BitmapData as a JPEG file. I have found flash examples that call php scripts in order to save jpegs, but is this even possible when running only local code? How can I do this??? Will this functionality be available any time soon? Any suggests of ways to do this would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!