[RockdaMan]

FAA guidelines:

The iPad was OK for reference, but not as a pilot’s sole source of information. The new FAA authorization changes all that.

To receive FAA authorization, Jeppesen and Executive Jet Management went through a rigorous approval process. It included rapid-decompression testing from a simulated altitude of 51,000 feet and ensuring the tablet will not interfere with critical navigation or electronic equipment.

Executive Jet tested the iPad and Mobile TC in 10 aircraft flown by 55 pilots during 250 flights.

The first thought many pilots, not to mention passengers, will have is: What happens if the iPad or the app crashes?

Jeff Buhl, Jeppesen’s product manager for the Mobile TC app, says the Apple iOS operating system and the app proved “extremely stable” during testing. In the “unlikely” event of a software crash, he says, it takes but a moment to get them running again.

“The recovery time for an application crashing or the OS crashing is extremely rapid,” Buhl says. During the evaluation period with the FAA, the production app did not crash. But even if it did, Buhl says it’s ready to go again “in 4-6 seconds from re-launch to previous state.”

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/02/faa-ipad/