Electronic Flight Bag anyone?

[Tomlin]

Hi all

I saw a picture this morning of a Learjet45 with two MFDs mounted on the yokes and it reminded of the Electronic Flight Bag by FSWidgets, which is usable on a network. You can see it here:

http://fswidgets.com/shop/product_in...products_id=35

I am thinking about trying the fully working demo out and seeing what I think of it. I have the entire US on paper for charts and approach plates, plus the Learjet 45 docs. How nice would it be to have it all scanned in (well, I would purchase the plates from some sim company) for use in the sim? Especially the performance charts and the Airport Diagrams!

Anyhow, has anyone ever used this product?

[mauriceb]

Anyhow, has anyone ever used this product?

I know someone who has used that with a tablet PC on his 744 flight deck (the gentleman who wrote the guide to autothrottles using Phidgets) and he absolutely loved it. I'd love to have that as well.

Maurice

[Tomlin]

Yeah, Im almost sold on it and I havent even downloaded the demo yet. I just registered at their forum and reading thru the post, it's amazing the support that I read of over there. I am going home early today and I will try it out and report back. I can imaging having a nice touch screen LCD connected via the video and usb cable that is set down between my leg and the center ped, or mounted somwhere, like the yoke, that allows us to view the airport diagrams and weather and other stuff. Amazing for a corporate aircraft!

[Geremy Britton]

Hi eric,

I've tried out the demo from the PC pilot mag and it seems pretty good.

I would consider it a worthwhile investment to reduce hundreds of bits of paper flying around the cockpit!

Hope this helps,

Gez

[Tomlin]

Thanks for the vote of confidence. It would be rather easy to implement this without the actual FSW EFB software if you wanted to just access a dedicated folder for all your paper-scanned products but this software gives a moving map which is really nice to have, plus I read that there is a way to add somthing else in with it to give you the ability to have your aircraft positioned over an airport overview chart, which is nice when moving across an unfamiliar airport.

My only issue with the demo is that while it's installed, I cant get it to connect to the host (im attempting to use the network version). I have very little networking skills, and it's asking for a port number to be assigned in the INI file, but I have no clue where to find that to insert it. I did try the same port thats use in the project magenta .ini, but it still isnt working correctly yet. Will report back.

[dnoize]

have you tried this free program from networking from fswidgets ?

http://fswidgets.com/downloads_fsw_net_pack.php

Also be aware that you MUST use 1024x768 screen resolution.

I have a touchscreen from a real Electronic Flightback and a tabletPC here, but both use 800x600 so i cant use it on those. (2 bad, because these were going to be mounted on the 737 window frame like some airlines have.

Stef

[Tomlin]

I have it working beautifully now.

AND- you CAN run this on a smaller monitor! See this from the EFB manual:

§ Screen Resolution Check Override.
EFB2004 normally requires a minimum screen
resolution of 1024x768 pixels and on startup the unit will check for that. This function is
for cockpit builders who perhaps want to run EFB2004 on a separate screen such as a
Tablet PC running at 600x800 pixels (portrait mode). To enable the override
simply add
a blank text file called NoResChk.ini to the main EFB2004 folder ADDED



What I would like to point out is that some have advised this blank text file wont work the magic, but the dev is in the process of having a file fix this for us users.

[NicD]

A heads up on this topic... there is another EFB product in advanced development now which is designed for cockpit builders, with an emphasis on 2-crew ops and online flying (those are optional uses - not mandatory). I'll post more details and screenshots as they come to hand. We'll be BETA testing with various World Flight 2007 crews and looking at distribution opportunities for the wider market in the next few months.

I'm just about to install 2 x 8" touchscreens in the cockpit top fully test it out. NO MORE PAPER.... YES !!

[flightdeck]

Sounds great Nic! Keep on postin'

[dnoize]

@ Nic: Thats good news ! Keep us posted !

@ Tomlin: The NoResChk works like a charm. Now i need to put Win XP on my tablet (instead of Win95) because the EFB needs Acrobat reader 7 which in its turn needs XP.

The 800x600 touchscreen i have works perfectly.

Nice product.

Stef