MAX KINGSLEY-JONES / LONDON
Dutch flag carrier to carry out six-month trial of Jeppesen's Class 3 electronic flight bag on its new Boeing 777-200Ers.
KLM is starting a six-month trial of Jeppesen's newly certificated Class 3 electronic flight bag (EFB), ahead of a decision to move to a paperless flightdeck early next year.
The Dutch airline is launch customer for the device, which is fitted on its new fleet of 10 Boeing 777-200ERs Ð the first of which was delivered last month. Although earlier EFBs have been available for some time - the Class 1 portable PC-based unit and semi-integrated Class 2 system that uses a pen tablet computer in a crashworthy mount - Boeing says this is the first time a fully integrated Class 3 EFB has been approved for commercial service.
The US Federal Aviation Administration approved the system last week, and the European Joint Aviation Authorities has accepted its US counterpart's authorisation, but KLM wants to run the evaluation with paper manual back-up before moving to an all-electronic system for its performance and aircraft operating documentation.
Developed by Boeing-owned Jeppesen, the EFB transforms printed material used by pilots to operate the aircraft into digital format, which on the 777 is presented on liquid crystal display units adjacent to each pilot. The system requires two to four hours of computer-based training, says Boeing.
EFB customers can choose from a suite of data functions. These include navigation and airport charts, flight and operations manuals and an electronic interactive logbook, a moving airport map display with taxi positional awareness (TPA) that is accurate to 3-5m (10-16ft), a performance calculator and cabin surveillance display. Although KLM has not yet taken the chart or logbook functions, it has opted for the 'qwerty' keyboard that is available for each pilot.Documentation is held in XML and PDF file formats. Boeing claims that the full system eliminates 35kg (77lb) worth of flight manuals.
Each pilot's EFB is a separate, totally independent system, says Capt William Royce, Boeing's senior technical pilot training, technical and standards. 'Each display unit has its own electronic unit, which gets its signals from separate GPS and flight management computer sources,' says Royce, adding that each electronic unit 'has two computers and two separate hard drives'. Linux is the main operating system with Windows as the secondary system.
'The FAA has approved two-day dispatch with only one operational EFB, where there is no paper back-up on board,' says Royce, adding: 'We can dispatch for up to 10 days with an alternative source for crucial data.' This could be in the form of a CD-ROM, from which pages could be printed out using the aircraft's onboard printer.
The EFB is available as a retrofit for earlier 777s, and Boeing is working with Jeppesen to install the system on other aircraft. This could include non-Boeing types, as the system is 'hardware neutral', says the manufacturer.
Source: Flight International
