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efbh.com
History
The Electronic Flight Bag concept was pioneered by Paperless Cockpit, Inc. in
the mid 90's with the Hand-Held Performance Calculator and electronic
checklists. Companies including FedEx and Southwest followed with "carry-on"
performance computers. JetBlue took the Electronic Flight Bag a step further by
converting all of its operations documents to electronic format and distributing
them over a network to laptop computers on-board the aircraft.
In the late nineties, Marinvent released its electronic approach plate software,
which was shortly acquired by Jeppesen Sandersen, Inc. As personal computing
technology became more compact and powerful, with extensive storage
capabilities, these devices became capable of storing all the aeronautical
charts for the entire world on a single three lbs (1.4 kg) computer, compared to
the 80 lbs (36 kg) of paper normally required for world-wide paper charts. New
technologies such as real-time satellite weather and integration with GPS have
further expanded the capabilities of Electronic Flight Bags.
While the adoption rate of the Electronic Flight Bag technology has been
arguably slow among large scheduled air carriers, corporate operators have been
rapidly deploying EFBs since 1999 due to reduced regulatory burden and easier
cost justification.
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