Move Over eFlyBook, "Reader Plates" Have Been Cleared For Landing

[NatCh]

Reader Plates Releases Pilot Approach Procedures For The Sony PRS Line

This is a bit old, and it's somewhat off topic as far as e-Reading goes, but we have a few pilots among us, so I think it will be of some interest.

Some may recall from the early days of the iRex iLiad that the eFlyBook was the first B2B application of that device. iRex originally had such applications in mind when it developed the iLiad: to sell the devices to other companies who would then load their own applications on them and resell them to end customers. They now seem to be seeing some moderate movement in the area of newspapers.

eFlyBook was conceived as a documentation management aid to pilots, and came (still does) loaded with "all of the U.S. digitized terminal procedures, IFR high and low altitude enroute charts, U.S. airport facility directory, [and] the FAR/AIM" (from the eFlyBook main page), all of which updates for a subscription fee.

Now another company, called Reader Plates, has released something similar for the Sony PRS line of Readers. It's less comprehensive, containing only the Terminal Approach information, but it seems to be the same deal where the content is updated by subscription. To read their descriptions, it is, naturally, the bee's knees when it comes to small craft navigation.

For those like me who might wonder how you'd get around what must be a rather large set of documents (13,000 of them, as it happens), they say they have the procedures "organized in a hierarchial [sic] menu by state, city, airport, then procedure type."

There is a more in depth review located here, for those who would like the reactions of actual pilots to the system, and more details of the product itself on their company page.

[jerryleejr]

I have been looking at this option for awhile but since I never have to pay for pubs I decided against it. However if I start flying as a private pilot then I probably will subscribe. Thanks for reminding me it was out there.

JJ