A system includes an aircraft avionics system and a portable computing device. The aircraft avionics system is configured to run one or more embedded avionics applications. The portable computing device is in operable communication with the aircraft avionics system and is configured to run one or more portable device applications. Each portable device application has resident therein a software development kit having libraries and utilities that enables the portable device application to: establish a secure connection with the aircraft avionics system, establish and maintain a required protocol with the embedded avionics application, and communicate with the embedded avionics application as specified by an application programming interface definition.