Another Amazing Selection From ANN's Top 10
Products/Programs Of 2008
Final Compilations by ANN Editor-In-Chief/Blame-Taker, Jim
Campbell
When it comes to the people, planes and products of the aviation
business, ANN firmly believes there is no such thing as an
embarrassment of riches. 2008 saw a spate of new programs and
'gadgets' designed to separate a pilot from his flying dollar...
fortunately, the vast majority of them are quite worthy of
foregoing the occasional $500 hamburger or two
.
In fact, for 2008 we
really had to struggle with the list in order to pare it down to a
manageable assembly and if we hadn't, we'd have easily had to
increase the size of our annual 'Best Of' list to several dozen, or
so, to accommodate them all.
From established products that continue to impress, to new and
exciting developments across the range of general aviation... here,
to our eyes, are some of the VERY BEST from our list of the
10 most worthy 'gadgets' and programs of 2008.
Avidyne's SERIOUSLY COOL FMS900W
An FMS for the masses… that's what Avidyne hopes for with
its development of the FMS 900W.
Avidyne Corporation had some BIG news to share with the GA world
last spring with the introduction of their new Entegra FMS900W
WAAS-enabled GPS/NAV/COM Flight Management System (FMS). Designed
to reduce workload for single-pilot IFR operations, the FMS900W
provides fully-redundant, state-of-the art VHF and TSO C146b Gamma
3-compliant turbine-class FMS capability for all general aviation
aircraft.
When Avidyne strutted its stuff before ANN's Aero-TV crews with
a demo of their upcoming FMS900W system on a number of occasions
over the last year, we grew more and more impressed each
time… especially with one particular factor, the device's
innate ease of use (and yes, it's incredibly capable, to boot).
We've worked with a number of FMS systems over the years but this
box seems destined to make its mark in GA with truly simple
operational requirements and an amazing bag of tricks. For the
moment, there's nothing quite like it.
In the works for some time, the new Entegra FMS900W WAAS-enabled
GPS/NAV/COM Flight Management System (FMS) is designed to reduce
workload for single-pilot IFR operations. The FMS900W provides a
fully-redundant, state-of-the art VHF and TSO C146b Gamma
3-compliant turbine-class FMS capability for all GA aircraft.
Utilizing a fully-modular architecture, the FMS900W Flight
Management System is an enhancement to Avidyne's Entegra Integrated
Flight Deck platform and is designed specifically to take advantage
of Entegra's large-format displays and Byteflight peer-to-peer
databus architecture.
FMS900W system components include single or dual remote-mount
LRUs, each with Avidyne's GPS723 WAAS/RNP GPS Sensor and a DVX740
VHF NAV/COM module and optional ACD215 Control/Display Units.
Avidyne's GPS723 sensor is a fully compliant RTCA DO-229D, Gamma 3
navigation system, and is designed to meet Required Navigation
Performance (RNP-0.3).
Avidyne is undertaking the certification of the Entegra FMS900W
program and expects to start installations in 2009… we can
hardly wait - we think we have an airplane that's just perfect for
this.