Business & GA

NBAA 2008: Investment pays off for EFB pioneer

Esterline CMC (Booth 2967) is now shipping 70-100 of its  (EFBs) each month as demand continues to grow.

Bruce Bailey, Esterline CMC’s vice-president, commercial aviation, says that the company saw itself as a pioneer of this technology in the late 1990s and that development work is paying off.

“The EFB has become quite a pervasive tool for the pilot,” says Bailey. “Our EFBs are on the Bombardier, Dassault and Embraer fleets, and have moved from being a high-demand product in the bizjet market to a must-have in the regional market too. We are also seeing growing interest in the air transport market as well.”

CMC’s PilotView makes flight preparation much easier with access to up-to-date aircraft documentation, checklists and flight planning information. During flight, it reduces the pilot workload with electronic charts and manuals, and on landing electronic logs capture essential information and fleet management.

PilotView offers a ‘film-on-glass’ 8.4in AMLCD touch-sensitive screen providing pilots with a choice when accessing or navigating through the software applications available.

In some applications PilotView can also allow pilot to toggle between the current application and video images from video surveillance systems.

“Our customers often comment on the EFB’s outstanding display, which offers exceptional readability in all cockpit ambient light conditions for charts, documents, weather data or other electronic data,” Bailey adds.

There are currently more than 23 STCs available for the product and CMC celebrated delivery of its 1,000th EFB at EBACE in Geneva earlier this year.