Tablets to Carry Your Electronic Flight Bag

The avionics and situational awareness technology now available through the use of electronic flight bags (EFBs) brings glass cockpit performance to any airplane with the use of today’s mobile tablets. However, not all tablets run all popular apps, so the tablet you choose is driven by the EFB app you want to use.

Foreflight’s Mobile EFB leads the industry and is the first and only choice for many pilots. However, the popular program only runs on Apple’s iOS, so the iPad Air 10.5-inch tablet with 256GB of storage is a great choice to run the platform and also store the charts, flight plans and documents you need. With 10 hours of battery life, this industry-leading tablet will last through even the longest GA flights.

While the Android operating system that powers Samsung’s Tab A 10.1 tablet will not run Foreflight, even the model with 128GB of storage is priced at less than half of the iPad Air 10.5-inch tablet and will be a wise choice if Garmin Pilot or other Android-based EFBs are your choice. The use of a Micro SD card for storage expansion gives users 512GB of room for charts, documents, and of course, photos and videos of your favorite destinations!

There are a number of EFB apps that will run on the Amazon Fire HD 10 tablet, including Hilton Software’s WingX and others. If entry price is a big consideration for adding a tablet-based EFB to your cockpit, the Fire HD 10 may suit your needs, however it needs an additional external bluetooth GPS to offer moving maps and geo-referenced charts.