Originally Posted by
aewanabe
Interesting that RAH is looking so far forward with the EFBs. It's not been that long since I left Chautauqua (8 mos now) for JB's E190 right seat, and have some observations. We're quasi-EFB, in that our FOM, AFM, and all other company manuals are on company-issued laptops. We carry paper Jepps, however. (The company experimented with LIDO for the purpose of going paper-less and that was a disaster, evidently). I'm actually a big fan of paper Jepps, probably because it's what I'm used to. However, at JB I carry ONE 2-inch binder plus a trip book; when I left CHQ I had 3 2-inchers, plus an enroute chart-holder, plus a trip book. If you guys are still carrying that much crap then EFB for the charts probably makes more sense.
Just curious how you are doing W/B via ACARS; I recently rode up-front on a RW E170 and it was still all whiz-wheel and paper. At JB I do the W/B on the laptop and then the CA sends the CG, weights, etc. to dispatch over the ACARS. Is it something similar to that?
Yes, we still have to carry that many Jepp binders and crap, it takes up a ton of room and weighs a ton. I have 2 full size jepp binders and a 1in binder completely full. We also have to carry the GOM (a little larger than a 2inch jepp binder) and the aircraft POH (the same size as a full 2inch jepp binder). Why the have never been able to just put a POH in the airplane is beyond me... This EFB will eventually replace all of those manuals, resulting in a truely paperless system. I believe at first however it will be for jepp charts only. It will be very nice and save a ton of weight, we will eventually not even need a flight kit, I am thinking of just getting some kind of small laptop bag to carry the stuff you'd normally have with you in your flight kit (headset, magazines, flashlight, gum, etc etc)
The W&B is done through the datalink page of the MCDU (acars). It has a section for takeoff performance where you input the departure runways and weather conditions, and a loading page where you enter the number of bags and the passenger count in each section. Once you put this stuff in, it sends back your W&B and takeoff speeds within about 30 seconds (I believe this does not actually go to our dispatch but rather to an automated computer program). For landing it also figures out your speeds and landing distances, both factored and unfactored.