Avidyne MFD Wish List

Guest Discussion
1

Ian Valentine’s post (on the Member’s area) with a couple of great ideas got me thinking about my own “they oughta…” list. Considering that just maybe Avidyne has a little more time on their hands, having the Entegra certification under their belt, maybe this is a good time for us to share ideas.

Just maybe they might be paying attention to what the largest group of their actual users of their products think…I hope so!

Here’s my list, in no particular order:

  1. Ground Proximity display showing terrain as Green (well above), Yellow (near current altitude) and Red (Above current altitude), based on GPS and/or pressure altitude, with audible ground proximity warning alert.
  2. Alternate base map showing IFR enroute chart like Jepp Flightstar.
  3. Map scroll allowing map center to be relocated for look-ahead and reference, like Garmin.
  4. User settable alarm points for all relevant Emax parameters (EGT, CHT, bus voltages); trigger an audio alarm when exceeded.
  5. Audio alarm output interfaced to audio panel.
  6. User editable checklists like Garmin. Include a “revert to factory default” button and a “Checklist edited – not official information” banner to satisfy the idiot CYA lawyers who insisted on non-editable checklists in the first place (the end result being that a lot of people don’t use them).
  7. Taxiway diagrams on close range zoom of airports, not just runways.
  8. Additional non-engine data in log file for altitude, etc. to strengthen cockpit data recorder functionality.
  9. On-screen playback of log file (thanks, Ian)
  10. Larger memory for log file (should be at least 250 hours).

Avidyne owners, please share your thoughts.

Tim

2

How about

  1. When skywatch sees a target, the Avidyne auto changes to 5 miles and 360 degrees. When you Clear the Garmins it reverts to the previous setting.
  2. Split screen capability?
    Richard
3

Great ideas!
How about adding the rest of the POH performance section and an interactive W&B section? You could just dial in people/cargo weight on graphic presentation. The aircraft empty weight could be a hard adjustment accessed by holding certain buttons at startup, like Sandel or GNS430. Then all data (fuel, weight, OAT…) could feed into performance charts to calculate TO, LD distance, etc.

As a sidenote to limits on custom checklists, it’s odd that I can completely adjust (i.e. mess up) the HSI, nav, and other avionics configuration settings that are critical for safe flight but not customize the checklists with “Boost pump - ON” before takeoff.

The Avidyne is an aircraft tailored PC with a lot of power and should be customizable. For that matter shouldn’t it be twice as capable every 18 months like other computers!

Charles

4

Tim - great MFD feature enhancement list.

It would be useful if the MFD calculated and displayed the winds aloft, as the PFD does. Assuming that the MFD can get the heading information from the Sandel DG (which I seem to recall reading that it is already wired for), and the course and ground speed from the Garmin, it would be fairly trivial math.

5

Tim–
Since we’re wishing… how about datalink? The Florida thunderstorms are starting to sprout. Any realistic upgrade date yet?
Jeffrey Cardenas

6

Tim,
One feature I’d like to add to the Engine Monitoring package is the ability to track fuel usage by tank. Ideally, this would be automatic – the system would know which tank I have selected. A good second choice would be a way to press a button to declare “I have just switched to the L (or R) tank”.

If this is done, a user selectable “Switch Tanks” alarm could be set up to occur when the tank imbalance = X, where X can not be made to exceed the POH recommendation.

  • Mike.
7

Based on the thread in the Members Forum, I’ll add:

  • Support for USB “Keychain” memory for data download, in place of only Zip drive.

Tim

8

Tim,

Excellent wish list.[:)]

When I contacted Avidyne about your No 1 terrain solution they replied to contact Cirrus since they only accept changes to the 5000c from Cirrus. Cirrus did not respond yet [:(]

Jaap

9

How about Airport Info page that shows full Airport diagram/taxiways and either your location or arrow point of screen to position.

Thought I’d consolidate the wish list for everyone:

  1. Ground Proximity display showing terrain as Green (well above), Yellow (near current altitude) and Red (Above current altitude), based on GPS and/or pressure altitude, with audible ground proximity warning alert.
  2. Alternate base map showing IFR enroute chart like Jepp Flightstar.
  3. Map scroll allowing map center to be relocated for look-ahead and reference, like Garmin.
  4. User settable alarm points for all relevant Emax parameters (EGT, CHT, bus voltages); trigger an audio alarm when exceeded.
  5. Audio alarm output interfaced to audio panel.
  6. User editable checklists like Garmin. Include a “revert to factory default” button and a “Checklist edited – not official information” banner to satisfy the idiot CYA lawyers who insisted on non-editable checklists in the first place (the end result being that a lot of people don’t use them).
  7. Taxiway diagrams on close range zoom of airports, not just runways.
  8. Additional non-engine data in log file for altitude, etc. to strengthen cockpit data recorder functionality.
  9. On-screen playback of log file (thanks, Ian)
  10. Larger memory for log file (should be at least 250 hours).
  11. Support for USB “Keychain” memory for data download, in place of only Zip drive.
  12. Best glide" circle or ellipse around the airplane when the nearest Garmin function is selected.
  13. Floor/cieling data on airspace printed
  14. POH performance section and an interactive W&B section
  15. Avidyne auto changes to 5 miles and 360 degrees for skywatch TA. Reverts when GNS430 cleared.
  16. Track fuel usage by tank.
  17. Airport Info page that shows full Airport diagram/taxiways and location.
10

Why not compute the performance characteristics of the a/c for the actual conditions – Pressure alt, OAT etc and display them on the display. Would eliminate the need to interpolate the performance data as a function of temperature and altitude.

11

The MFD already gets all wind computation info except airspeed. The PFD has that TSO’d equipment because it replaces the original indicator.

12

I think the wind calc idea is excellent.

I’ve just got my Avidyne, and have only flown 3 hours with it, so I’m just getting used to all the features, (I was watching EMax most of the time), but the seperate track & heading indicators on the compass rose do give some indication of wind. However having looked at the way the PFD works, (with an arrow on the HSI display showing wind) this would work well on the MFD arround the compass rose.

Thinking of the compass rose, I noticed a difference between the Avidyne and the Arnav displays that I wanted to note. While flying with a faulty HSI and Arnav a while ago, I got into the habit of switching the ARNAV compass rose on. This used GPS track data and acted as a good cross reference for the HSI incase it was not slaving or frozen.

However this does not seem to work with the Avidyne, where the compass rose (always on) and heading indication seems to be directly derived from the HSI. If you unslave the HSI and move it, the heading indicator on the Avidyne changes.

So one feature on the Avidyne would be to calculate the difference between the GPS track and the HSI heading, and alarm if the difference did not seem like it could be accounted for by wind, or if it suddenly changes.

This would provide a warning incase your HSI ever freezes and you don’t notice! When it happened to me I picked it up quickly, but it is potentially dangerous, and the Avidyne could easily be programmed to pick it up almost immediately.

Overall, I think since we already use the Avidyne as an alarm centre, ground, traffic, weather, engine etc it is the logical place to alert us of other system failures or mistakes.

For example, could SkyWatch warn us if we were flying with our own transponder switched off? Or could it warn you if ground speed is greater than airspeed with full flap (i.e. a downwind landing).

The other thing I miss on the Avidyne, is that it does not display on the screen the vertical limits of airspace. The Arnav would paint the screen with the upper and lower limits of airspace in feet. Very useful in the UK where we are always flying under the big boys. Now with the Avidyne, you can see an airspace boundry ahead, then you have to check the garmin using pointer mode, to get the vertical details of the airspace ahead - not efficient! (Yes I know the MFD is only for reference)

Also in the UK there is class no class B or C airspace. Airways tend to be class A, and the Terminal Manovering Areas are class D (except Heathrow) I would like the option to set up airspace classification to show Class D clearer.

Also moving from Arnav to Avidyne, I find the summary engine data on the map screen a bit small. I would like an option to get bigger clearer engine data on the map screen.

And another - moving between Map/Trip/Nrst/Setup/Engine etc with the left knob would be a LOT easier if the options “wrapped”. I.e. moving “right” from “Engine” would take you to “Map”. This should be trivial to change, but it would then put Map and Engine (the two most frequently used screens) effectively next to each other (one click), instead of a number of clicks apart.

Just my 2p worth.

Ian

13

Mike
IMHO, that one seems pretty involved. Why not just set the Garmin alert for 30 min, which is what I do.
Richard

14

Many of the wish list ideas appearing in this thread actually are incorporated in the design of the Eclipse Avio suite, which unfortunately is now very delayed due to the Williams engine fiasco.

If you look at the Avio architecture, you will notice that most of the intelligence lies in the box labelled “Avionic”. Well, it happens Avidyne is the development partner for that box. When I was at a recent Eclipse meeting their VP Engineering Oliver Masefield learned I flew in in a Cirrus. He made the rueful, bitter comment, “Oh, you are getting our displays!” Apparently alot of the $250MM spent by Eclipse so far was in the design of the Avio suite, and Avidyne (and us by extension) have been a beneficiary of that work.

-Curt

15

At the Eclipse 500 rollout last year, I talked to the VP in charge of avionics. He said that Eclipse was spending $70 million developing Avio.

At the January meeting, I also verified that the Eclipse 500 would be using the same gyro package as Entegra (except that it will have two of them). That’s good news for Eclipse, since the gyros and electronics will have been thoroughly wrung out by Cirrus owners before Eclipse uses them.

-Mike

16

In reply to:

Why not just set the Garmin alert for 30 min, which is what I do.

Richard - any any particular moment, how do you know how much fuel is in each tank? What if the MFD/EMax winks out or you must turn it off to shed load? Do you keep a written log of fuel used/remaining for each tank? Fuel gauges don’t count.

17

In reply to:

Why not just set the Garmin alert for 30 min, which is what I do.

Richard,

I do the same.

My desire to have the quantities tracked more automatically is to reduce some of the mental arithmetic I do now… I keep a running tab of how much fuel I have left in each tank. I try to land with tanks as close to equal as I can, and I check to see how much each takes when I refuel. This way, I also keep tabs on the accuracy of the fuel computer.

Anal? Probably. But I feel that I’m a little less likely to fall prey to a very common off-airport landing scenario (fuel exhaustion or starvation) because of this practice.

However, one could argue that automating this would make me LESS attentive to my fuel, and thus MORE likely to become a fuel-exhaustion-starvation statistic… so you may be right.

Mike.

18

When I took delivery of my '22, didn’t trust the fuel gages much. Later added Emax, and while I haven’t taken them down below 10-15 gallons in a while, they have been ‘dead nuts’ accurrate in the upper ranges with both the Emax and when I fill up. Running LOP, my bladder and sore butt make me want to land before I’ve gotten close to running dry [:)].

19

With regards to the wish list. It would be nice for the Avidyne to display a “best glide” circle or ellipse around the airplane when the nearest Garmin function is selected. In other words in case of an engine failure or an “oops, I ran out of gas” scenario one could immediately see a ring around the plane on the MFD indicating the touchdown point on the ground. If it could take into account wind direction, strength, vertical descent rate, speed and elevation then it would be a fantastic tool for decision making.

20

“Someday” (and this is not an Avidyne specific wish), I would like to have not only the GPS georeference position on the approach plate but also the aircraft position on the descent profile.