Also Intros 15-Inch Envision Displays

Avidyne Corporation had a message for pilots, manufacturers, and the general aviation industry as a whole Monday at AirVenture 2008: the company's back, and anyone who had written them off should take notice.

After ceding much of the GA glass panel market -- a market pretty much Avidyne created, with its Envision flight deck -- to rival Garmin, Avidyne knew it had to offer a knockout punch in order to stand any chance of regaining market share. The avionics manufacturer has done it by combining Synthetic Vision (SVS) and Enhanced Vision (EVS) with large-format 15-inch Integrated Flight Displays (IFDs). 

Avidyne says its Entegra SVS offers improvements over existing systems by depicting 3D terrain all the way out to the horizon, based on the aircraft's altitude above the ground. The Avidyne system also depicts obstacles, traffic and "Highway-in-the-Sky" (HITS) boxes on the PFD, enhancing the utility of the airplane, improving the comfort level of passengers, and increasing the safety of each flight.

The company builds on that capability by offering Entegra EVS enhanced vision, using a Max-Viz EVS-100 infrared camera. EVS is designed to turn night into day, enabling pilots to see up to ten times further in marginal VFR conditions through most atmospheric obscurations. With SVS and EVS, pilots can now fly comfortably at night, enjoying clear views of the ground, seeing emergency landing fields, roads, lakes, and buildings.

"Since we launched the all-glass flight deck revolution for general aviation in 2003 with Entegra, we have continued to provide the most up-to-date avionics systems available by paying close attention to user interface and integration," noted Dan Schwinn, Avidyne's president. "We're continuing that tradition with our SVS and EVS offerings which increase situational awareness and add another level of safety enhancement for GA pilots," he added.

"Avidyne brings a new level of performance to the display of synthetic vision in GA aircraft," said Steve Jacobson, vice president of Product Management. "The Entegra SVS provides a constant level of detail during rendering, resulting in a smooth, real-world transition in the representation of terrain features as they grow nearer rather than a sudden 'morphing' of their shapes," he added.

Pricing and availability of SVS and EVS upgrades for Entegra will be announced at a future date, as part of Avidyne's on-going Entegra upgrade announcements. Avidyne will demonstrate the new SVS and EVS systems at its booth, 2098-2101, in Hangar B at AirVenture.

FMI: www.avidyne.com