Avionics News June 2012 - 56

Price Point:

The Package Performs Huge for the Bucks
This is as capable a package as anything found at any price – but priced to fit into the budget of owners flying older Cessna, Beech, Piper and other singles and twins. In an unscientific survey of owners of older airplanes during the 38th annual Sun ‘n Fun International Fly-In in March – primarily piston singles selling between $25,000 and $100,000 – we saw the cost sensitivity one might expect. For example, among owners flying airplanes worth $30,000 and less, only 20 percent felt attracted to a $20,000 glass/autopilot package. Owners of aircraft described as worth $30,000 to about $50,000 went for the idea at a rate of 60 percent. For owners of aircraft worth more than $50,000, the affirmative response rose to more than 80 percent – with one caveat. Virtually everyone conditioned their interest on the availability of a suitable WAAS GPS companion. Aspen is working with Honeywell in a second partnership to bring to market the Bendix-King KSN 770 all-in-one WAAS GPS/ nav/comm/LOC/ILS with touchscreen control. Avidyne itself is offering the IFD540 plugand-play replacement for the Garmin GNS 530. Another choice is Garmin’s own 530 replacement, the GTN 750, or the 430 replacement, the GTN 650. So, what’s the bottom line? As aircraft values rose above $50,000, owners seemed increasingly open to investing half or more of the value of their aircraft in at least the basic enhancement. The DFC90 makes much of it easy, as long as the servos are latter model units that can work with the control head. Otherwise, beyond installing the DFC90 and the EFD1000, new servos would be in order. But, as more than one noted, a shot at such capability without trading planes is something they have long wanted – some even before they knew they wanted it. q
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ASPEN & AVIDYNE

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The DFC90 functions driven by the PFD1000 sensors include: • Flight director. • Heading capture; heading hold. • NAV tracking. • GPSS mode – GPS roll steering. • Approach modes for LOC, ILS, VOR, BC, LPV, LNAV/VNAV and LNAV+V. • Altitude capture; altitude hold. • Vertical speed hold. • Indicated airspeed mode in climb or descent. • Straight and level one-button upset recovery. • Speed-based envelope protection. • Full-time envelope alerting. • Pilot-selectable intercept angles. • Control wheel steering. GLASS-COCKPIT TECHNOLOGY: THE NEW SOP IN GA AIRCRAFT? Browsing new general aviation and light-sport aircraft during the 38th annual Sun ‘n Fun International Fly-In left little doubt about today’s preferences in panel equipment: glass. Electronic instruments now seem the hands-down cockpitequipment standard. Today, filling the panel slot for a flight-control system, we find digital autopilot systems – the most-cutting edge of them work off the same solid-state sensors that drive the flight-data displays. What serious aviator wouldn’t want all that capability in the family plane? But, relatively few can buy new planes, and retrofitting to that level has costs approaching six figures. The Aspen/Avidyne package upsets the old yardsticks. With Aspen’s building-block system, you can spend another $10,000, plus a relatively small installation cost, to add Aspen’s 1000 MFD and gain the security of a completely redundant, selfbacking EFIS cockpit. Aspen expects approval soon for the 1000 MFD to take over guidance of the DFC90 when operating in the Reversionary Mode. Now at about $40,000, installation included, a pilot with a healthy old Archer, Bonanza, Mooney or Skylane can leap straight into the 21st century of aviation with complete redundancy. To gain the equivalent of an integrated panel with FMS would take approximately $12,000 more, the projected price of the Bendix/King KSN770. A touchscreen control all-in-one nav/comm/ WAAS GPS, the KSN 770 is already working with Aspen Evolution system under another development partnership, this one with Honeywell. Aspen and Avidyne are already working to complete several new STCs to install the EFIS/autopilot package in Cessna’s 182 Skylane and the Cirrus SR22, with the Bonanza and Baron lines, and many others, to come.

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june

2012

Avionics News June 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News June 2012