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EFB SOLUTIONS

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ed charts and plates of procedures. Organizationally, filing and retrieving updates is nearly automatic via online services. Monetarily, many electronic products – charts, plates and facilities guides – have significantly dropped below paper in price as EFB options have increased. Environmentally, Jeppesen is using a couple billion fewer pieces of paper this year than a couple of years ago, and that’s just one vendor saving lots of trees. In contrast with the hesitance of a few years ago, we have the makings for an electronics land rush into cockpits comparable to the heady days of just 15 years ago when the first portable GPS navigators landed. Just as those early monochrome wonders, about the size of a television remote, won acceptance with pilots across the spectrum, the EFB is now increasingly displacing paper with software and electronics. And handling charts? That’s only the start of what EFBs offer, purpose-built or custom-designed.

A Tick List of Features… Helping Pilots Pick Their Wants and Needs
Fortunately, between consumer electronics and dedicated offerings, pilots enjoy multiple options for meeting their graphics needs. But, here’s the rub. If EFBs offered nothing but a way to view or display charts and plates, the main shopping points would come down to some simple traits – how quickly

charts load, zoom and pan; how clear they appear when enlarged; and how easily the interface moves from one item to the next. The market has moved far past the laudable, albeit limited, task set built around documents display. Charts and plates are the basic EFB functions, which the pilot needs only a bare-bones, readymade EFB or a tablet computer, and an application that provides and organizes the charts and plates at the highest graphics level possible for a monochromatic image. The airplane flight manual, airman’s information manual and pilot operating handbook are three documents pilots typically own that increasingly may be available in an electronic format to load on a custom-designed EFB. More often, aircraft manufacturers offer such documents electronically for their customers’ use. For example, in October 2011, Gulfstream published “PlaneBook,” an iPad-compatible electronic document management application distributed through the online Apple App Store. An airplane-specific checklist is another popular document. In some cases, a downloadable program can provide the list. In others, the EFB allows the pilot to create such a document to display on the EFB, which also serves other roles. Beyond documents like checklists, charts and plates, EFBs can offer a host of other uses. EFBs can function as portable nav devices, weather watchers and traffic displays. In the past three years, the

once-humbly emerging graphicsdisplay device landed many more roles that pilots covet with good reason, and picking a product became problematic. Some EFB devices, for example, may provide GPS navigation capability. Some even geo-reference – that is, move the chart or airplane icon accurately on a chart, approach plate or procedure – contributing a new level of situational awareness for pilots. Some display datalink weather imagery. Others offer synthetic vision capability over a display graphic that mimics a primary flight display. What a pilot may want or need of these above-and-beyond EFB capabilities largely depends on flying habits. However, the basics of the EFB may be all that’s needed by a day/ VFR-only pilot or even a day-night/ IFR aviator.

Aviation Specific vs. Custom-Designed Tablet
Here’s where guidance may be handy. A tablet computer from a consumer electronics store will need to be loaded with any and all of the aviation software the user wants. The aviation-specific unit will be ready to go out-of-the box with nothing more than a quick, usually free, software update to close the gap between the box leaving the factory and the pilot opening it. Otherwise, it’s good to go. Similarly, the aviation-specific unit should be armed and equipped
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pilot's Guide to Avionics 2012-2013