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Old 28th Jan 2008, 12:45
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FlyMD
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Switzerland
Age: 55
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Hi,

I've been working on and off with electronic flight bags for the last few years. I have also operated a bizjet with a full worldwide paper edition, as well as "gone halfway" and printed the appropriate charts for each trip from a laptop and a portable printer before each leg.

In a nutshell, and for my taste, 2 EFB's of good quality in the cockpit is the way to go. Right now, on a G5, I use 2 Toshiba sub-notebooks reconfigured by a firm called ADR and called FG 7000T, or something similar. They cost about 3'500 USD per unit, with a 2-year warranty including display breakage.

The displays are just large enough to work on, even at an age where the arms are generally getting too short for perfect vision... For a flexible use in daily ops, some training with the software is required, especially for a late change of runway or quick access to another ground chart.

What is required is an electrical outlet in or near the cockpit, because those units do not have more than 2 hours battery autonomy after a few month of use.

The obvious advantage of the all-electronic solution are 1) once the EFB's are updated you will always work with a current chart 2) each pilot has his/her own display, allowing a certain redundancy 3) you do not need to waste cargo space on binders. The Worldwide area charts and enroute charts can be place in as little as 4 binders.

If the electronic gizmo is not to your liking, and I understand quite a few colleagues still have their reservations, then a very acceptable solution in my opinion is to have Jeppview installed on the aircraft laptop only, and print the relevant destination and alternate charts before a trip. This will cost a little time before each trip, and a pretty penny in ink cartridges for the portable printer, but you can work with the good old paper charts, and even decorate them with magic marker pen if that is your fancy.

For this solution, however, 2 things required: a) have the discipline to throw away the printed charts shortly after your flight, or check all the dates against the latest revision if you plan to re-use them. Nothing more stupid and embarassing than to have the latest Jeppview disk but use an outdated chart and b) keep the laptop with the Jeppview program handy in the cockpit, in case of change of destination or if you need and unexpected enroute alternate.

The full paper solution for a worldwide operation is just not practical anymore, unless your co-pilot loves doing revisions for 2 hours per week, and you have all the stowage space you will ever wish for..

EFB's have been reliable for me, and I have used at least 4 different brands up to date. New Hardware is coming out all the time (Paceblade comes to mind) and it will keep getting better.

OR.... you just tell the boss to buy you a G550 or another plane with integrated chart display, which is the sexiest solution of all...
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