Jeppesen Releases Terminal Chart Viewer for Apple iPad
by Plane Geek on Jul.26, 2010, under Industry Briefs, News, Plane Geek, Product Announcements
Today, Jeppesen released Mobile TC, an iPad App that displays electronic terminal procedures. The App is available for free in Apple’s iTunes store, but it requires a subscription to JeppView or NavSuite. While the Jeppesen Mobile TC App is not as feature-rich as exisitng iPad Apps like Foreflight (which sports XM Weather in addition to NACO charts), having access to worldwide charts on a compact, low-cost platform may make the iPad an attractive Electronic Flight Bag platform for Business Aviation.
Jogging Behind the iPad Bandwagon – But Not Jumping On
by Plane Geek on Apr.14, 2010, under Blogs, EFB Reviews, Plane Geek
The above video comes courtesy of dhallpolo, and is the first practical application of the iPad as an EFB: using NACOmatic to create PDF downloads of approach plates and facility directories. Of course, I can’t wait to get my hands on one to test.
I’ve been reluctant over the past few months to make any comments regarding the iPad. As an EFB integrator and application developer, I can see both the opportunities and challenges in making the iPad a viable EFB platform. Simple solutions like using NACOmatic and an iPod/iPad PDF reader are a great place for end-users to start, but it may be a few months before “mainstream” EFB application developers begin developing for the iPad.
The problem is that EFB development is still Microsoft world: most general and business aviation applications today are developed using Microsoft’s .Net platform or C++ with Win32 platform extensions. Some developers, like Jeppesen, have been successful in writing C++ code libraries that other programmers can use on Windows and Linux platforms. While some EFB application developers use Java to maintain cross-platform compatibility, these applications usually take a performance hit across platforms because Java applications run in a “virtual machine” on top of the host operating system. The Java virtual machine acts as an additional stumbling block between the application and the underlying system resources, so it can be difficult to achieve the same level of performance on graphic-intensive, georeferenced applications common on EFBs.
Of course, iPod, iPhone, and iPad development throws another wrinkle into the mix. Like Microsfoft’s .Net platform (which actually encompasses a few closely related programming languages), Apple has developed Xcode, a derivitive of C. Also, there is a special set of developer tools, the iPad SDK (Software Development Kit), that provides a specialized set of programming libraries and techniques for developing iPad-specific applications.
If you’re confused yet, don’t worry. Most EFB application developer who are taking the iPad seriously have to overcome the Xcode and iPad SDK learning curves before they can begin developing applications. It may take a while for them to become as proficient with Xcode as they are with .Net, C++, and Java.
So, I’m not expecting anything interesting in the next few months. I do hear that Hilton Software’s WingX may be ahead of the game, but I haven’t had an opportunity yet to evaluate their platform on my iPod, and I don’t know if they have plans for an iPad version.
Until we see more robust applications designed for the iPad, I think there are many other feature-rich, high-performance, cost-effective EFB solutions available today.
Avoiding Chart Database Corruption When Updating JeppView or NavSuite
by Plane Geek on Jul.25, 2010, under Blogs, News, Plane Geek
One of my old EFB customers emailed me with this problem: he’s out on the road for week-long trip, multi-leg trip, and when he tried to update JeppView online, the update failed during installation and corrupted his chart database. He left his original JeppView installation CDs back at the hangar, and Jeppesen won’t be able to overnight replacement disks for at least twenty-four hours. Fortunately, he has a backup EFB, he doesn’t want to risk corrupting the database on the second system by doing another online update, but he needs current charts.
The solution I’ve used in the past is fairly simple: backup the entire Jeppesen folder. Prior to every update, I copy and paste the Jeppesen program folder to an my “Jepp Archive” folder, which I keep on a removable hard drive (a four gigabyte or better “thumb” drive also works well). I could copy it to an Archive folder on the “C:” drive, or any other local drive on the EFB, but storing the backup on an external drive has a unique advantage, which I’ll discuss later.
To back up your Jeppesen directory follow these steps:
- Create and Archive folder on your removable drive or EFB, as long as it is not inside the Jeppesen folder.
- Open My Computer, go to your “C:” drive (typically the drive where JeppView is installed), and navigate to the folder containing the “Jeppesen” folder.
- On Windows XP, you can find the Jeppesen on the “C:\” drive/
- In Windows Vista or Windows 7 look in “C:\Program Data”.
- The “Program Data” folder is hidden by default in Windows Vista and Windows 7, so to see it you may need to go to ORGANIZE>FOLDER AND SEARCH OPTIONS>VIEW.
- Select “Show hidden files and folder”.
- Uncheck “Hide protected operating system files”.
- Click OK.
- On Windows XP, you may find the Jeppesen folder or the “C:\” drive root directory and in “C:\Program Files”.
- If the” Jeppesen” folder exists in “C:\Program Files”, this is the one you want to back up.
- Otherwise, just backup “C:\Jeppesen”.
- To back up the “Jeppesen” folder, single click on the “Jeppesen” folder to highlight it.
- Go to EDIT>COPY.
- Navigate to your backup drive and open the “Archive” folder.
- Go to EDIT>PASTE.
- Wait until the copying completes.
- Run the Jeppesen Update client (or update CD).
- TEST your JeppView installation (this is VERY important).
If the update process corrupts you charts again, make sure you exit all Jeppesen applications, and simply copy the “Jeppesen” folder from your archive drive and paste it into the directory containing your corrupted “Jeppesen” folder. This should overwrite the corrupted files and at least take you back to working expired charts.
Now, in the case of the operator I previously mentioned, he was able to take the backup copy from his second EFB and paste it into the Jeppesen folder on his first EFB. This won’t work in all cases, but because this operator’s EFBs were identical and each was installed using one of the available activations from the same serial number, copying and pasting the Jeppesen directory from one to the other worked fine.
After both EFBs were running again, the operator was able to finish updating the first EFB successfully (he had to remember to baby-sit the device throughout the entire JeppView update to ensure it didn’t go to sleep). He then created an Update Pack, transferred it to the second EFB using the same “thumb” drive he used to store the backup.
So, the moral of this story is: “Always backup JeppView before you update it!” Finally, always test your installation after an update by opening several charts: just because the Jeppesen installer says it completed successfully, it does not mean the database was not corrupted.
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