Interview With Dan Schwinn Of Avidyne, Part IV of VI

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• Read Part Two
• Read Part Three

In today's installment of ANN's interview with Avidyne's Dan Schwinn, we pick up where we left off yesterday. Dan is speaking about servicing their products, and what is required each time the systems are updated. Schwinn also talks about Avidyne's applications in the Cirrus SR22 and the upcoming Eclipse 500.

Aero-News: Have you issued a lot of service bulletins?

Dan Schwinn: Oh, yeah! Every time you modify the thing at all you put out a factory service bulletin to let the field guys know how they manage it.

Jamie Luster: Most of them have been enhancements.

Dan Schwinn: Yeah. There's dozens and dozens of them. Sometimes we issue them directly, sometimes we issue them through the OEMs. They'll reference us.

Aero-News: You haven't ever issued a mandatory safety service bulletin?

Dan Schwinn: Yeah, but you know, it could happen. We do our best to make things as safe as possible, but if we mess up, then we'd have that means available to us.

Aero-News: There are a lot of ways that this makes an aircraft safer. One is the new capabilities, and another is that some of the old systems you replace are not noted for reliability. Anyone that's had to descend through 7,000 feet of IMC with no vacuum pump would be a big fan of your system.

Dan Schwinn: And the other thing that's happening is, we're building in much, much higher levels of redundancy than you ever had before.

A good for-example is if you take a Cirrus, it has a PFD. And as a backup, it has a backup attitude indicator. Now, prior to that, a Cirrus and every other airplane that was ever made with steam gages had an attitude indicator, and a backup turn coordinator.

And you ought to be able to fly on a turn coordinator and altimeter, but you know, that's not how you fly usually.

Aero-News: We can read an awful lot of accident reports every year, of someone that tried it and didn't succeed.

Dan Schwinn: Well, now we have a backup altimeter and airspeed indicator. Those are mechanical instruments and unlikely to fail, but now we DO have backups where we didn't have them in the past. I think in the future, you'll see things, like, for example, on the Eclipse, where there's multiple electronic versions of that kind of thing. And you've got a level of redundancy that is much higher than what you would have seen just a few years ago.

Aero-News: What's different on Eclipse from what you've done before?

Dan Schwinn: Well, I'd characterize Eclipse as having two major differences from our current products. And Eclipse is the first of our next-generation products.

One set of differences I would call the Eclipse Avio customization. Eclipse has this thing they call Avio which is not only the Avidyne stuff, but it's all the other pieces of the system, which Eclipse has integrated together. So in order to support that, Avidyne has to do a bunch of things.

For example, all the circuit breakers are managed through our system. The flaps and gear and all these other indications come through us. Obviously, all the engine indications come through us. Pressurization is done through the system. Air condition, cabin comfort systems, climate control. That's all done through our system.

The Eclipse configuration is also different. The screen layout -- two verticals, and a wide middle one -- that's custom for Eclipse. All of that Avio integration stuff is custom for Eclipse. So the first big category of new stuff that's out there is a level of systems integration that hasn't been seen on an airplane for less than about $20 million before.
So that's a really exciting, big deal. And Eclipse makes quite a big deal out of that.

The other part of it, is that it is the first airplane that has our GPS/Nav/Comm capability in it. So it has the flight management system, our system, the way you can navigate around is through our own navigation system. And this is going to be the first new navigation system brought on to the market, pretty much, since the Garmins came out.

And it has fabulous enhancements, especially on the ease-of-use and functionality side. It has WAY more functionality than any general aviation navigator is; it's more comparable to a high-end business jet FMS. But unlike that high-end business jet FMS, it's much easier to use, even than the EASIEST light GA navigator. And that was our design plan.

Aero-News: So this is good support for Vern Raburn's plan to make a sort of jet for the masses.

Dan Schwinn: Now, that thing's going to be a lot faster than the people who are the target audience for that thing have dealt with before. And what we're trying to do with both the Avio integration, and also with our FMS, is, we're trying to build something that's much, much easier to use that the current generation of flight decks.

And that, of course, has been an Avidyne thing. We've been all about ease of use from inception.

The FMS and Nav/Comm capability on the Eclipse is something neither Avidyne nor Eclipse had spent a whole lot of time talking about yet. And probably, Avidyne won't; one of the things you might have noticed in the past, is that we have typically let our OEMs be the first to launch and talk about our new products.

We immediately swing in with all kinds of support, but typically, when there's new functionality coming out on an OEM product, we let the OEMs talk about it first. So Eclipse will be the ones to talk about the Avio management system -- I think they're going to do a whole bunch of that at Oshkosh. [Note: this interview took place before AirVenture 2005] The reason I think that is, I saw a whole bunch of Eclipse people down at Avidyne getting trained on this stuff last week and this week.

But I'm not sure. It's up to them what they talk about.

Aero-News: They have a bunch of announcements planned. It will be their first show of a fully configured plane -- the plane in Florida was a test plane.

Dan Schwinn: Yeah, I've seen the planes, and they're really cool.

Really, what's going on with Eclipse signifies two future directions for Avidyne. One is much more systems integration, and the other is, GPS/Nav/Comm capability integrated into our system.

Aero-News: Is this the first time you've worked with an OEM at this early stage of a clean-sheet-of-paper design? It seems like you were in with Eclipse very early.

Dan Schwinn: We were in with Eclipse very early, and that was really fabulous. The one thing that makes it not as ideal as it could have been is that, when we first got in with Eclipse, Avidyne was a very new company. And Eclipse and Williams made the decision to involve Avidyne for part of the flight deck and BAE for the other part.

When Eclipse had to change engines [see Aero-News's interview with Vern Raburn for the inside scoop on that tectonics shift], the also were having trouble. BAE was trying to do a good job, and Eclipse was trying to manage them, but it wasn't a very good fit, because BAE's a military contractor, basically.

And they ended up breaking off that supplier relationship, and refilling it in with several other suppliers. Meggitt for the autopilot, FreeFlight for the GPS receiver, and Crossbow for the AHARS.

Aero-News: So all of a sudden you guys went from one handshake to six handshakes?

Dan Schwinn: Well, what really is the case is, once upon a time, when we first proposed to Eclipse a totally integrated system, they said, "You guys can't handle it." And they were probably right! This was 1999 or something like that. And so, the Eclipse is the most highly integrated thing out there, and it's been great working with them from inception.

There'll still be a next generation which will have even higher levels of integration. But from the perspective of the operator, that thing is as integrated as it gets. From the perspective of the guys making the black boxes, maybe there could be a little bit more.

But it's a fabulous embrace.

Aero-News: It's pretty seamless looking from the pilot's seat, then?

Dan Schwinn: It's fabulous. You know, in the last year there have been some terrific, terrific people that have come on board at Eclipse and have worked with Avidyne people and they're flying all this stuff. And they're flying what's called Version 4.0 right now, which is the first release of the Avidyne system that has all the system management in it.

I'm looking forward to, when we get out to Oshkosh, I'm sure I'll get to talk to all the test pilots, and hear how they like it.

Aero-News: So some of the oddball gages and wiring we saw when they first showed the plane might be gone.

Dan Schwinn: Well, if they're using it for flight test, it's likely to still be there.

I'm not sure about the fourth plane, but the first three all have flight test equipment racks in them.

Aero-News: They're bringing a finished plane with a full interior to Oshkosh.

Dan Schwinn: That'll be a hit. It's such a neat little plane. I almost got to fly it! During my trip out there.

Aero-News: Is that, "the one that got away?"

Dan Schwinn: I was out there for a couple days maybe three weeks ago. One of the Eclipse guys was nice enough to offer. He said, "maybe we can get you a ride." But of course, there had been no planning done for that... and they were quite busy with other aircraft, so... I'm sure sometime I'll get to go up and fly.

Aero-News: Jim got to fly it, and he's been raving about it ever since.

Now, let me ask about he wide range of OEMs that are with Avidyne. In terms of where an Avidyne panel's going, we really can't go down much lower in the market than the Symphony, can we?

Dan Schwinn: That's true as far as the current technology is concerned. And then, also, if you think about it, when you've done that, what else is there to do?

Aero-News: Below that it's ultralights...

Dan Schwinn: Light Sport Aircraft. Which are not IFR aircraft, by definition.

Aero-News: Not even night aircraft.

Dan Schwinn: So... all our stuff is inappropriately expensive for non-IFR use. And ether Avidyne or somebody else will probably have a nice business, making really cool avionics for Light Sport Aircraft. That's the next thing down from us, ultralights and Light Sport Aircraft.

Blue Mountain and OP Tech are the people that, for me, seem to be going after that. Would we like to be in that business? We might like to. We're just kind of busy doing other things.

Aero-News: It's kind of a small market.

Dan Schwinn (intensely): It's small, but it's where people get started.

Aero-News: Which is the importance of having it in the PA-28, and in the Symphony, if they ever really get rolling.

Garmin pushed hard to get into Diamond. There's a lot of people coming out of the Embry-Riddle CAPT program. They still have some steam-gage airplanes, but within a year or so they're going to be graduating pilots that have never sat behind the Sacred Six (only a digital representation). And they'll be sending them off to fly RJs with glass panels.

Dan Schwinn (bemused): They'll never even SEE the mechanical stuff.

Aero-News: Of course, some of the graduates are placed in a 747-200 freight operator, so they have plenty of steam gages to look at.

Dan Schwinn: (laughs).

FMI: www.avidyne.com