Mark asks:
"Has anyone come up with any neat gadgets, or ways to organize charts, maps, appraoche plates, etc. in our birds. Aside from the copilot seat, or copilot holding these."

Yup, been working on that very problem. Actually since November, Hamid and I have been designing a follow on product to the CT-1000 for CMC Electronics. Here is what we came up with.

CMA-1100 Electronic Flight Bag

The CMA-1100 is a Class-III capable EFB designed specifically for the needs of the pilot. It is a self contained, full featured, tablet computer that is small enough to fit in any cockpit with a display large enough, and with enough resolution, to clearly present an entire Jeppeson approach plate to the pilot. To solve the tablet computer data entry problem, the CMA-1100 features an innovative sliding FMS style alpha numeric 49 key keyboard. A three band, built in, wireless network interface provides up to 54MB/s of data bandwidth. The USB 2.0 ports are each capable of 480 MB/s and will allow streaming (15 frames/sec) 640 x 480 real time video, CD/DVD ROM interface, 100BaseT networking, RS232 Serial interface or any other USB compatible peripheral.

Smaller that a laptop and bigger than a PDA, with built in battery backup, the CMA-1100 is a "Goldilocks" "Just right" solution for the paperless cockpit.

The CMA-1100 can use any common operating system but will initially be released with Windows XP Embedded.

The CMA-1100 features:

Sunlight readable (1000 nit) 8.4 inch AMLCD display with XGA (1024 x 768) resolution and 24 bit color.
High ratio (1nit to 1000+ nit) dimming display backlight.
Pentium-M 1.1GHz Centrino processor and GME chipset.
Hardware system watchdog.
Built in wireless 802.11 A/B/G network interface.
82 key keyboard split between display perimeter keys and a slide out FMS style keyboard.
LED key backlights.
High resolution touch screen.
Cardbus PCMCIA Type II expansion slot.
Up to 512 Mb ECC (Error Correcting Code) SO-DIMM RAM.
Dual CF format mass storage slots for up to 8 Gb of solid state mass storage.
6 USB 2.0 interface ports (2 ports at USB connectors and 4 ports in the mount).
Certified to DO160-D levels for EMI, power, shock, vibration, HERF, humidity etc.
Size: 6.1 wide X 8.5 tall, X 1.5 thick.
Weight: 3.1 Lbs (1.4 Kg).
Built in uninterruptable power supply with 45 minute nominal duration (varies with backlight setting).
Hot-plugable electro-mechanical mount with 4 each USB 2.0 interfaces.

The following pictures were taken with a Fuji digital flash camera while the system was powered from it's internal battery. The pictures show the actual display, not a paper cutout or pasted in picture.

CMC has not finalized pricing or the availability schedule so I do not have that information at this time. Keep an eye on the CMC website www.cmcelectronics.ca for updates. I will try to arrange to have one at OSH this year.

Please forgive the shameless commercial plug but this thing is so f%#$*g cool that I was sure you would like to be among the first to know about it.

Regards
Brent Regan