Previews Synthetic Vision, Backup Instruments

Aspen Avionics introduced version 2.2 software for its popular Evolution EFD at the 53rd annual AEA Convention and trade show Thursday. The new version of the Aspen software adds some new user-friendly features that increase functionality and decrease cockpit workload.

"We have 2,600 installations flying," said Brad Hayden, Aspen's Vice President for Marketing. "Considering that it was just two years ago this month that we launched the product, that a pretty significant number."

Hayden said the company is now starting to take its "product roadmap" to the next step, building new products for new markets based on the EFD1000 hardware and software, with both the fixed and rotary wing markets showing interest. "There's a bunch of Extra 300 guys that like to try to see if they can make our AHRS roll, make it tumble," Hayden said. "They had some contests going where the only way they were able to get it to roll would be to fly in a knife-edge ILS approach. And it turns out we were able to fix that with our 2.0 version software. So now they can't get it to tumble at all."

The version 2.2 software for EFD1000 will include some significant new features, including navmap panning. The feature uses a "gunsight" which the pilot can place over an object or non-object and retrieve information about the targeted item. A second panning function allows scrolling off the map being displayed.

Hayden said there are now multiple paths to the same information. For those pilots who prefer to go through the menus to get information, they can still do that, or use the "gunsight" panning function. "One of the things we really strive to do," Hayden said, "is build a product that conforms to the pilot, and not the other way around."

Later this year, Aspen plans to start shipping a backup display, which is essentially an EFD1000 in landscape orientation. It will include seven backup "instruments" in one unit, including attitude, altitude, airspeed, VSI, HSI, GPS flight plan, and GPS steering.

Aspen also plans to make a synthetic vision upgrade available early in 2011. The system will be based on Jeppesen 3 arc second terrain data on a high-resolution display. Hayden says the combination of the hi-res display and the Jeppesen terrain data make a very compelling and realistic representation.

Hayden said pricing information on the upgrades will be available later this month.

FMI: www.aspenavionics.com