Yesterday, one of the instructors at our local flying club showed me the worlds most tricked out Seneca. After getting over my shock of seeing someone load avionics worth more than the damn aircraft into the plane, I checked it out pretty closely.
It’s got a 530/430 pair and an Avedyne MFD. The MFD is capable of bringing up original Jepp charts. I think it can also be used for the TCAD and spherics displays (however they were using the 530 and the Sandel for that stuff).
One cool, and sad, at the same time, item was that their MFD runs Windows NT. I suspect that they’re just running the standard JeppView software in it to display the plates. I guess one can always play a quick game of Quake or “Unreal Tournament” on those long cross country flights. 
On the negative side, I don’t think I would trust my life to something that runs Windows. I guess I’m going to have to keep filing those &(#)(% Jepp updates by hand and carrying 30 pounds of books in the back seat for a while longer. 
On a more serious note, has anyone else looked at this MFD? Comments pro- or con-?
As far as I can tell, almost every other product out there is better than the ICDS 2000.
I’m woefully underimpressed with the user interface, features, and display technology. I’ve also heard pretty negative comments about the software development environment and quality, but I can’t substantuate those.
It’s going to take, at a bare minimum, a decent engine management package, TCAD display, and working weather uplink before I am molified enough to not just rip it out and put something more useful in its place (perhaps some cup holders?).
Paul
Here I am replying to my own message… a sure sign of impending psychosis.
I wanted to clear up some misinformation – I started doing more research on the Avidyne MFDs and it seems I repeated an unsupported claim.
The Avidyne displays will display enroute charts, but don’t appear to be capable of displaying approach plates – at least as configued from the factory.
That said, I’d also like to apologize to any ARNAV guys out there for saying that I’d happily rip the ICDS2000 out in order to put in something more useful like cup holders. That was totally uncalled for and I was being gratuitously inflamatory. I guess that’s what happens after filing Jepp plates for a few hours. Sorry.
Please just make your display as good as you can.
Paul
p.s. Given the new FADEC engines, I wonder if we could ever expect an ARNAV engine monitoring interface to those…
Paul,
Aviation Consumer wrote a pretty good article on MFD’s in the last three months. If anyone is interested, I’ll try to find out which issue, and if anyone is really interested, give me your fax nr. and I’ll fax you the article. If I get numerous requests, I will try to scan and upload the article to the other SR20 web site or fax it Clyde (if you’re interested?).
To paraphrase a little bit, and I’m sorry that I am probably not entirely accurate, the article did discuss the inherint problems with MFD’s using windows.
So far, they HAVE NOT experienced many problems with locking-up or crashing like our home and office PC’s. They said that this was mostly due to the fact that the MFD/computer only ran very few select applications, not up to dozens of conflicitng programs run by most PC’s.
Secondly, they did discuss the boot up and close down time as a disticntly negative factor.
On the other hand, they also panned the vaporware aspect of ARNAV’s interphases.
Overall they said the each different style of MFD, each manufacturer and product has its advantages and disadvantages (tough conclusion!), I think they felt that waiting is always good to see how the market shakes out, but I guess as with computeres, you could wait forever and never feel 100% sure you are making the best choice.
FWIW, I too am very disapointed with ARNAV. With a Sandel HSI, and no other functions for the ARNAV, it really does look like a bad waste of valuable panel real estate.
Marty
p.s. Given the new FADEC engines, I wonder if we could ever expect an ARNAV engine monitoring interface to those…
Should be a snap - the FADEC already has all the sensors, and I will bet money that it has a serial output that reports all the data. The ARNAV has a bunch of serial inputs, so it should be simple…
Here I am replying to my own message… a sure sign of impending psychosis.
I wanted to clear up some misinformation – I started doing more research on the Avidyne MFDs and it seems I repeated an unsupported claim.
The Avidyne displays will display enroute charts, but don’t appear to be capable of displaying approach plates – at least as configued from the factory.
That said, I’d also like to apologize to any ARNAV guys out there for saying that I’d happily rip the ICDS2000 out in order to put in something more useful like cup holders. That was totally uncalled for and I was being gratuitously inflamatory. I guess that’s what happens after filing Jepp plates for a few hours. Sorry.
Please just make your display as good as you can.
Paul
p.s. Given the new FADEC engines, I wonder if we could ever expect an ARNAV engine monitoring interface to those…
FWIW (which ain’t much, since I don’t have one myself), a fellow I ran into in October spoke highly of his Apollo MX20 MFD. He said it interfaces with his WX500, provides VFR and IFR nav charts (I don’t know about approach plates), terrain awareness, flight planning, and very much liked the display appearance. Does anyone have any hands-on experience here with the Apollo since it seems like Arnav and Avidyne seem to get most of the press?
Pete
p.s. Given the new FADEC engines, I wonder if we could ever expect an ARNAV engine monitoring interface to those…
Should be a snap - the FADEC already has all the sensors, and I will bet money that it has a serial output that reports all the data. The ARNAV has a bunch of serial inputs, so it should be simple…
Yeah, but don’t forget, “Hardware is easy, software is hard.” Seems like software (and lack of attention) have been the main impediments to major improvements in the Arnav ICDS 2000.
By the way, have you noticed that the Arnav web site shows an ICDS 2000 displaying weather, nav, and engine monitoring simultaneously, in split-screen mode?
-Mike
FWIW (which ain’t much, since I don’t have one myself), a fellow I ran into in October spoke highly of his Apollo MX20 MFD. He said it interfaces with his WX500, provides VFR and IFR nav charts (I don’t know about approach plates), terrain awareness, flight planning, and very much liked the display appearance. Does anyone have any hands-on experience here with the Apollo since it seems like Arnav and Avidyne seem to get most of the press?
Having flown behind the ARNAV (plus two 430s) for about three months now, I still find the ARNAV useful, if nothing else for the Big Picture aspect. The 430s are just too small for the strategic view. I find that setting each screen at a different scale is quite useful (I usually leave 430 #2 on autoscale). Obviously it would be nice if/when it did a bit more to earn its real estate, but I wouldn’t call it useless.
Having said that, I recently spent three hours in a King Air 200 with an Avidyne display, and it was a beautiful thing to behold. I did not get much of a chance to play with it, but the display itself was spectacular (albeit not as big as the ARNAV).
Current software in the MX 20 allows it to display its own version of VFR charts, very similar to sectionals, and its own version of IFR enroute charts. Both of these a almost infinitely customizable as to scale, what detail they show…etc. The screen resolution is also far superior to the ARNAV I saw, though it is much smaller, similar in size to a Garmin 530. The next release of UPS software, due very soon according to UPS at the AOPA convention in Long Beach, will allow pilots to call up ACTUAL APPROACH/DEPARTURE plates on the screen. I saw this - it was amazing. What you get is a photograph of the plate, and then YOUR PLANE’S POSITION put on it. Talk about situational awareness. They said sometime in the future (if GPS ever gets there) they would also consider putting the airplane on the profile section of the approach as well, so you sould see how close to perfect you really were flying that glide profile.
I believe that in the Lancair, the flat panel displays (Avidyne) have similar capabilities, though I don’t know whether or not their software is going that way.
Last thing, I think the best feature of the MX20 is built in terrain-awareness, which can save your bacon.
Dean
In fact the display in the Lancair is Avrotec; the software being Avidyne. Both are superior to the Arnav …(display resolution, brightness, and the utility of the software. Arnav does indeed have some catching up to do. The size and form factor of the Avrotec display is also quite attractive and would fit well in the Cirrus panel. (It is also useful to note that the Avidyne software includes TCAD interface as a standard feature, as well as excellent terrain awareness.) Ahh… if only.
Having flown behind the ARNAV (plus two 430s) for about three months now, I still find the ARNAV useful, if nothing else for the Big Picture aspect. The 430s are just too small for the strategic view. I find that setting each screen at a different scale is quite useful (I usually leave 430 #2 on autoscale). Obviously it would be nice if/when it did a bit more to earn its real estate, but I wouldn’t call it useless.
Having said that, I recently spent three hours in a King Air 200 with an Avidyne display, and it was a beautiful thing to behold. I did not get much of a chance to play with it, but the display itself was spectacular (albeit not as big as the ARNAV).
A friend of mine has the MX-20 in his TC-182RG - I haven’t seen it in action yet (he’s been more interested in flying in the SR20 than showing off the 182) but will probably get to do so later this month. He reports being very happy with it though.