The PMDG’s CEO Robert Randazzo has as promised taken to the Forums to unveil information about the PMDG’s Universal Flight Tablet (PMDG EFB) for the PMDG 737 series in Microsoft Flight Simulator.
General Information
The PMDG EFB is a highly anticipated addition to the current and upcoming PMDG aircraft and is from now on going to be present in the 737 series, the upcoming 777 series and so on.
Mathijs Kok from PMDG already mentioned that something is happening around the EFB this week and that the big reveal is going to happen this weekend, and PMDG kept on their promises.
Whilst many refer to this tablet as the EFB, Robert goes on to mention that EFB has a completely different meaning, and it refers more to the default electronic flight bag found in the 737NG, 777 and 747-8 aircraft. PMDG planes were equipped with the EFB back in Prepar3D.
Initially, the team thought that the development of the EFB was going to take just a few months, but this dream vaporized as the development gradually continued.
The main trouble was with connecting C++/WASM aeroplane to a different, not mentioned language on which the Flight Tablet runs. All of this was addressed in Sim Update 13, which brought the capability of the simulator to connect to scripts within the same computer and not via Javascript.
Whilst Robert mentions that they could have just gone a different route with the tablet, the team didn’t want to let go of the original vision with the Universal Flight Tablet.
Flight Tablet’s Features
The Universal Flight Tablet by PMDG is going to offer many modern functionalities that we could have already seen among PMDG’s competition. The tablet is going to be able to import flight plans from Simbrief, download weather for the flight plan route, and display OFP and real-time METAR information.
In addition to that, there is going to be Navigraph Charts integration with flight-centric chart selection or pinning of desired charts.
You will be able to calculate performance via the Universal Flight Tablet as well. This is the most important functionality many PMDG pilots have been hoping to see for a long time.
This includes calculating take-off, diversion and landing computations, data import from flight plans or the aircraft itself, reduced runway computations and even a graphic display of displaced threshold data.
Currently, there are still some functionalities in development. This includes managing all of the PMDG options, functions and failures via the tablet instead of the FMS menu.
Randazzo goes on to mention that this is going to be an ever-evolving product as their planes are.
Release Date
The release of the PMDG’s Universal Flight Tablet is going to occur next week on, or around October 30th, 2023.
In the meantime, you can also take a look at our different article covering the PMDG’s development here.
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