Sony book reader

[Fuji Abound]

I have not yet had a proper look at this "new technology" but it occurred to me it could be an ideal way to store all those dreaded plates, from SIDs, STARs and approach plates to Pooleys.

I have got the lot on the MFD courtesy of Jeppsen in one of the aircraft I fly but it is always good to have a backup to the books or the MFD.

As I understand it the display is exceptioanally easy to read in sunlight / daylight, the battery demand is low and the size looks about right.

Colour is not really needed for this purpose.

I dont know whether it is possible to load pdf files or whether Pooley or CSE have any plans to produce an electronic version of their airport guides.

For the diligent it would also offer a brilliant way to keep these guides up to date without pi**ing around inserting bits of paper.

I have got the lot on my tablet but even though its a Lifebook it is not that convenient in the aircraft, it gets hot with the battery running, and its still a bit bulky.

(Edited to add just read on the Sony site that they say it will read pdf files. Sounds to me like you could download all the plates from NATS and have yourself a pretty good electronic flight deck!!)

[bookworm]

I tried some AIS PDF plates (happened to have them on a USB stick) on an Irex Illiad which they're selling at Borders for £400. Seemed to be fine. I think it's a bigger screen than the Sony, though you still need to zoom in to read the smallest text. Sunlight legibility excellent. Page turn a bit slow.

[A and C]

I to was in search of the paperless flight deck and felt that paper charts should be a thing of the past until I got a bit deeper into the research.

At the end of the day most of the computer technology is not reliable enough to use in the air for the replacement of approach plates, IO540 has done a lot of work on this and has come to more or less the same conclusion as my self.

The way I have gone for private aviation is a good laptop loaded with "Jeppveiw" and a flight planning program and a small printer, this enables me to flight plan and file on line and print the plates and plogs for a flight all from by hotel room. I know that I still have a lot of "paper" but the whole package weighs less than a set of Jepps and it won't "crash" in the air.

For my professional flying I have to endure the "less paper cockpit" all held on two tablet computers, the aircraft performance and W & B functions for pre flight planning are very good it is only when you get the thing in the air that the problems start and I shall outline a recent incident to highlight why these things should be stowed when the engines are started.

The day in question we had just lifted off when the # 1 air conditioning pack trips off line passing about 4000ft we had the ECAM drill done and need to check the MEL for single pack operations. I tried to fire up the tablet computer but it just refused to load, the FO passed me his tablet and this one loaded but due to the bright sunlight was almost impossible to use as when you tapped the screen to select an item another one was selected !
To get around this problem I had to shut all the window blinds and huddle down in a corner to get the thing to work, the data I needed was only extracted as we passed FL290 which was lucky as the highest level we could take was FL300.

Just to add to my annoyance with this device it is loaded with approach plates from the European Aeronautical Group (who ever they are!) and these are plates are by far the worst I have ever used.

With two computers and an FMC database the "less paper" cockpit is just about workable but for private flight in a small aircraft paper is the way to go for things that happen in the air as you don't have the redundancy of multiple computers.

And I almost forgot to add the batteries have a habit of going flat at the most inconvenient moments!

[Fuji Abound]

A and C

I agree with all of your comments.

I have seen IO540's Motion computer in action which is no better (or worse) than my Lifebook, both of which mirror the comments you make.

I've got all the Jepp plates on the MFD, readable in direct sunlight, powered by the aircraft and with a nice green aircraft postioned on the plate God willing just where I am. It takes some beating.

However, I gather the new eBook is not trying to compete with either PDAs, notebooks or tablets. The screen uses a different technology that I am lead to believe is more readable than paper, even in sunlight. The battery will of course go flat but last a great deal longer than most of us can sit without taking a p!

I just wondered - it might work. Interested to read a few comments along the lines that it would appear to not suffer from the limitations you have so well outlined.

Any one used one?

[IO540]

There are two main products out now with this new display technology - the Sony one and the Irex Iliad.

I have a working solution on the Irex Iliad (1024x768 display) and except for the naff battery life (5-10 hrs) and the pig slow user interface it works perfectly well for Jeppview plates, though only very marginally for the free EAD plates because they were drawn for A4-size printing.

I briefly saw the Sony device and it seemed better than the Iliad.

The real problem is that there is no "official" way to print off Jeppview plates for say all of Europe, to PDFs, sorted in directories by country/airport/ plate etc so as to be easy to browse using the Iliad's slow user interface. You can sit in front of Jeppview and print off a load of PDFs but what you really want is an automated solution. If somebody did this they would not be advertising it, however... In the USA, the free NACO plates make this sort of thing possible and a few people have done it - complete with a suitable user interface which overcomes the very slow display updating.

The Iliad really needs the installation of the 3rd party PDF reader (see the irextechnologies user forums) which does not display those space-wasting buttons on the bottom of every page. I don't play with unix so never bothered to install this replacement PDF reader. With that installed, it would be very good. Because it draws very little power, it doesn't get warm/hot (like all laptop technology based products do).

However, I print off plates for departure, destination and alternates and the very few occassions that I needed other plates in a great hurry I have other solutions on the LS800 tablet which I have running anyway in the cockpit, for emergency VFR GPS moving map usage, and satellite weather data.

Nobody TMK has yet produced a product based on the new displays which is a generally usable computer running e.g. a web browser - the display writing speed is incredibly slow so this is a difficult task. But it may come one day. The thing is that the aviation market is insignificant and the "e-book reader" market doesn't need any more than a PDF display device.

A&C - the plates you describe are from Aerad. I am suprised anybody is using electronic data from Aerad - I thought they died out except in the dark corners of British Airways who once owned them :)

[Final 3 Greens]

Fuji

Not for this purpose, but I have a Bookeen Cybook Gen3 which is absolutely bril.

The screen is smaller than the Illiad and detailed drawings can be difficult to read.

If you are an avid reader, definitely worth getting one anyway.

The way eInk works means that page turns are slow, but I get about 5-6,000 page turns out of a single charge, as the battery power is only used when changing page, not when displaying.

[Julian]

These were on the Gadget show a few weeks ago, the Sony came out on top out of the few they reviewed.

I had thought of doing the same thing but got the impression from the reviews that they used their own file format and therefore you were limited to purchasing files from their own sites, i.e. you could not scan your own books / IR plates / etc in and use them.

What file format do the files take and is it easy to make your own? (As some appear to have been doing successfully)

J.

[Final 3 Greens]

Julian

The Cybook reads PDFs and I have scanned my own to view on it.

One of the big advantages of it as far as I was concerned - it also reads PRC files.

[Julian]

Thanks F3G, I guess I will have to look into it more.

The other thing is that is you have one preloaded with all your 'homemade' plates can you instigate some form of indexing system to allow you to go straight to the Airport then appropriate approach plate or would you have to turn over 2500 pages to get to the one you required! ?

Also, is it possible to zoom in on a page or are you stuck with viewing only full page?

J.

[Final 3 Greens]

Julian

I don't think it would be suitable for plates.

The zoom, is text, not graphic, based and the device has no backlight so it might be difficult to read in a cickpit environment.

Also the "paper" is not bright white, it has a dullish slightly green/grey tinge.

However, as a method of carrying text reference documents or books to read, its great.

[A and C]

The plates that I described are not from AERAD but the European Aeronautical Group.

I am not a great fan of AERAD but they produce a product far superior to the EAG plates.

[Bravo73]

FYI, A and C, the European Aeronautical Group own and produce Aerad plates.

[A and C]

These things are nothing like the AERADS that I have seen and not to put to fine a point on it they are rubbish!

Some more research on my part is needed but as I am only working with these things on a short term basis I had not looked into the origin of these plates but I suspect that they are ex-SAS.

In short I can't wait to get back to the Jepps when this contract finishes.

[A and C]

A quick Internet search has revealed that you are quite correct and AERAD have merged with the EAG that was part of SAS.

The product that we are using is part of the "old SAS" system and so has no relation to the AERAD as I would have known it. Having used the stuff for the last four months I can only say that if this is the standard of product that AERAD is likely to become I would cancel my subscription at the next renewal and switch to Jepps.