The long awaited and oft delayed PMDG electronic flight bag/EFB/tablet or Universal Flight Tablet as they are calling it finally has been revealed and it has a release date. Yeah! So let’s have a look at it!

A bunch of features and more to come?

Nearly every airliner released by a third party in Microsoft Flight Simulator has an EFB in the cockpit. The exception to that rule has been PMDG’s four 737 airliners (and their DC-6 if you want to count that in the running) which have not yet had the functionality. EFB’s have been used by third party developers to do all kinds of things from configuring the airplane to turning on and off certain features to running performance calculations and even having Navigraph charts displayed in the cockpit. That’s the kind of functionality that PMDG is bringing to their aircraft.

In an update posted late last week, PMDG Robert S. Randazzo took to their forums with a new update. It’s lengthy but here are some of the key things that you may want to know:

• The table has SimBrief integration. It can import flight plans, download weather, share that data with the aircraft, display the flight and then display real time METAR information in both native and simplified formats.
• If you have an Navigraph account, you can display charts right on the tablet including moving icon showing off the aircraft on displayed charts.
• The tablet will also do performance computation, a key feature of real world EFB systems, with T/O, Diversion, and Landing calculations. Data Import can come from flight plans or from the aircraft.

And here’s what the interface looks like:

Those appear to be the core features coming in the update, slated for October 30th. Additional applications are also planned for the tablet that will bring all of the PMDG options, functions and failures from the FMS to the tablet. You’ll still be able to make the changes on the FMS if you want or on the tablet. Options are good and development is expected to continue post launch.

Robert also reports that the in-development 777 will have its own EFB, or Universal Flight Tablet in PMDG parlance, on launch. Sounds good!

Read the complete write-up and announcement over on the PMDG forums.