The basic question an "EFB" user needs to ask is what would he do if the device packed up.
Which it obviously can do, regardless of how it is made or how it is "certified". This is why commercial (installed ) EFB products come in pairs, with redundant computers and power supplies.
If you fly with paper (only), you don't need a backup.
If you fly with electronic data (only), you
do need a backup.
And there are multiple scenarios where an electronic solution can let you down right when you need it
- in flight failure due to software crash, causing database corruption so a reset down't work (the most likely - happened to me when driving with TomTom the other day; the UK road database on the SD card got wiped and I had just the French road one, which was a whole lot of use near High Wycombe
)
- in flight hardware failure
- something happening the night before the flight e.g. a database update corrupting the whole thing (e.g. a friend of mine has just trashed his Jepp Flitestar installation by applying the very last update CD; probably bad luck since I know of 2 others whose update was OK). One can guard against this by never applying updates shortly before a trip, etc.
- etc (you get my drift)
So, what will be the backup??
Looking at things the other way round - flying with paper as primary and electronic data as backup for unexpected changes of plan - is a lot more sensible, because most of the time you will have paper.
The backup reliability is then a lot less critical because one is then looking at a failure of two independent "systems", and various solutions will work.
The Ipad works as well as any standard-LCD device providing the ambient light can be reasonably controlled;
these pics show the kind of degradation one can expect in bright light, against my LS800 tablet which has a special sunlight-readable LCD. The Ipad has a very fast PDF browser, which is a plus; however I am sure Jepp are not distributing their "ebook" plates as PDFs because that would make it rather easy to share them around
There are mixed reports from U.S. pilots on how the Ipad is affected by heat; it appears to shut down within minutes if exposed to direct sunlight while in a hot cockpit, just as most consumer-grade tablet computers would.
Personally, I am sticking with the LS800 because it runs a GPS moving map and I have VFR charts for all of Europe on it, so I can always see exactly where I am for emergency / obstacle clearance etc purposes, but if I was after just a Jepp plate viewer then the e-book based
SolidFX offers total sunlight readability, and presumably due to the lack of the heat-generating LCD backlight it appears to not suffer from heat effects.
However, I wonder what will happen to SolidFX now that Jepp have pulled the rug from under their feet with the Ipad product. One hopes Jepp will continue to license their plates to SolidFX.
Pricing-wise, the two solutions are likely to cost the same - sub-£100 if you already pay for the appropriate Jepp coverage (nearly £2000/year for all of Europe, IFR and VFR) under another heading.
Neither product runs Jeppview (a windoze application) natively so both rely on a Jepp license and the supply of the Jepp database and some kind of rendering software.
EFB certification has no relevance because (G- and N-reg context) it is 100% legal (if not necessarily wise) to fly with only electronic data, with no backups, and this has been the case for a very long time. It comes down to the hardware/software, and consumer stuff = consumer stuff no matter what you do with it. But even a mil-spec computer (which tend to be too heavy) can pack up.
I have used Jeppview and Flitestar for a few years and the software is mostly reliable if used out of the box with default configs (don't try to edit the aircraft performance data) except for the Flitedeck program which is a piece of rubbish and which crashes readily. I am thus not suprised that Jepp's first Ipad product release crashes as well; it would be out of character if it was solid
