EFB - Best practices for the evaluation and approval of Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) applications for aircraft performance calculations and mass & balance

EASA_REP_RESEA_2014_1

Traditionally many aircraft performance calculations have been accomplished using paper-based reference material stored on-board the aircraft. As much of this information has become available in electronic format, air operators have progressively recognised the benefits of hosting this information on flight crew member’s electronic Flight Bags (EFB). Whilst initially utilised as a means of storing, retrieving and using the aircraft manuals and information required to be held on-board, subsequent technological developments have given to EFBs the capacity to not only store and display aviation data but to also perform a variety of computational calculations, access databases or display real-time data.

The principal objective of the EFB study is to identify the best evaluation practices and to propose concrete and clear guidelines and recommendations for development of standardised EFB approval procedures. This shall be accomplished through assessment of the known evaluation procedures and NAA approval processes for the use of Electronic Flight Bag equipment within Commercial Air Transport (CAT), with a primary focus on those software applications used for the calculations of aircrat performances (take-off and landing) and mass & balance.