industry WIRELESS CONNECTIONS STREAMLINE COCKPIT CHORES S T O R Y B B Y D A V E H I G D O N etween the moment the waitress took our lunch order and when she retrieved our meal in the restaurant attached to the FBO at Stearman Field in Benton, Kansas, an avionics company representative worked with me to sketch out a flight plan on the tablet computer that doubled as an electronic flight bag. After a few keystrokes, a couple of screen taps and a quick review, we completed the flight plan with the EFB software running on the tablet - all before our salads arrived. Once in the cockpit, the engine started and out again came the EFB; it opened right back at the flight plan entered. With a couple more keystrokes, that tablet transmitted the flight plan to a box integrated with the flight management system in the avionics stack. It took mere seconds; no added keystrokes; and no further button or knob work. One final acknowledging touch on the touch-sensitive display of the FMS confirmed our intent and that it - and we - were ready. Discounting the time we waited for the avionics stack to fire up and finish its selftest process, barely 30 seconds passed between firing up the tablet and acknowledging the flight plan's transmission. The preliminary cockpit chores finished so quickly that we still faced a small wait while engine-oil temperature rose into the green - not the avionics fault. So we spent the extra couple minutes comparing the flight plan data in the stack against what we entered into the tablet before lunch. They were, happily, identical. As expected. The Aspen Avionics Connected Panel What we keyed into the tablet matched what 18 avionics news * july 2016