At the risk of this sounding like a rhetorical question, has anyone done a comparison of the new Arnav MFD with the Avidyne?
I know there’s the advantage of Avidyne being able to draw DME arcs, holds, and procedure turns. Besides that, what are the differences?
Having logged about 5 hours with the new Arnav, I have more of an appreciation of the higher resolution. Not sure if Avidyne is a step above, etc. What is the status of their engine monitor, and are they on time with it? Weather - is one closer than the other?
Understanding I’m wed to Arnav for the forseeable future (and am actually very happy with the new unit), I’m still curious about the differences.
I haven’t seen the new ARNAV, so I can’t specifically comment on the improvement over the original ARNAV which I saw.
First, the ability to draw the approach, including vectors to final and missed approach segments is very important to me. DME arcs, holds and procedure turns less so. There is a great deal of situational awareness that results from seeing the approach on the Avidyne as well as on the paper plate. Plus, the paper plate doesn’t show you where you are moment by moment.
Particularly when being vectored to the final approach course you have the impression that you are looking over the controller’s shoulder with the Avidyne display. You see where you are, where the extended centerline of the runway is and how far away from it you are. This helps to anticipate speed reductions in anticipation of extending 50% when established inbound. Plus, you have a further verification of the entire procedure on the screen. All of this results from the advanced interface that the Avidyne has to communicate with the Garmins.
The other big advantage to the Avidyne to me is the ability to interface to a greater number of inputs. The Skywatclh and Stormscope are both present now. The engine monitor is coming, I’m not sure precisely when. Satellite weather is due out soon, and the pictures have been posted to Avidyne’s web site. Mode S traffic display is probably coming soon. Avidyne has been doing the interfaces to various devices, originally onboard weather radar, and has developed quite an ability in that regard.
I don’t think you are going to see satellite weather and Mode S traffic displays on the ARNAV. Avidyne has announced the satellite weather and the pictures on the web site show that most of the development is done. When I talked to Avidyne about Mode S traffic they said that as soon as Cirrus offers the Garmin 330 transponder as a factory option that they will show Mode S traffic.
All in all, I am very happy with the choice of Avidyne.
I have had 3 months with the ARNAV and 3 months with the Avidyne in my SR22. In addition to the curved flight plan segments I prefer the Avidyne overall based on the following:
controls and menus are easier to operate and more intuitive.
you can program to shut off the button labels after a number of seconds to give more map are when you are not using the controls. Touching any button brings the labels back.
You can switch between GPS1 and GPS2 for backup.
The two information blocks can provide more information and are more flexible than the single block on the ARNAV.
Service for one early problem was very responsive.
My main complaint with the Avidyne is the lack of a Desired Track Up view.
I haven’t heard anything but great things about the Avidyne, which in certainly consistent with your post.
However, if I’m understanding your post, I’m still struggling to seen the difference, other than depicting DME arcs, procedure turns, and holds. Arnav always did the extended runway for vectors to final, and depicts the missed as well. Old and new did Stormscope; new does Skywatch. Arnav and Avidyne are both promising weather.
Lots of speculation as to who will do what when. Still, I have two questions:
What is the current comparison in capabilities? Seems to me that Avidyne does arcs, pt’s, and holds, and Arnav never will. Arnav has engine monitoring, and Avidyne probably will.
Does the design of the Avidyne allow it to have future capabilities that can’t be done on the Arnav?
Andy, a couple of weeks ago I test flew a 22 with Bruce Gunter…We had a fun day and I was terribly impressed with the 22.
Therefore, I had a recent ‘view’ of both the Av. (only for an hour or so) and the new Arnav. Here are may take-aways:
To me up in the sun…the Av. wasn’t bright enough and I found myself having to squint and gaze for something on the screen. I also thought the Sandel was too dim and seemed ‘crowded’ with stuff. ut, everyone on this site seems to love the Sandel, except for its failures, so I am sure the crowded stuff has merit. I asked Bruce and he thought that was as bright as they both get.
But, even with our graphic upgrade, the Avidyne was truly HD-TV by comparison. Not sure I ‘need’ HD-TV in the cockpit if I am sacrificing brightness and engine monitoring. I believe engine monitoring is one of the most valuable assets of the plane.
I was surprised to learn that getting more on the Arnav requires another trip to Wallyup. esp. the 429 sync cable to allow for other ‘stuff’ on the screen…This should have been included in THIS upgrade.
I wasn’t as sold on the upgrade as you:
a) seems they reduced the identifiers by 30-50%…they used to pop off the screen and now you have to stare.
b) they ‘inadvertently’ (quoting Arnav) took the ‘pointer’ away…I used this thing often and dislike not having it.
Bringing up info. is a pain.
c) the color of ‘terrain’ on the east coast is useless…it drowns out almost every other color. Probably useless anyway…who needs terrain on the east coast…but I don’t know how Arnav let that slip by.
d) all the obstruction '###‘s’ appear in the 25 mile view and by themselves are a huge obstruction on the screen…this is area sensitive. I’d rather this come up on the 15 mile view as before.
e) Declutter is a good addition and some of the other pop-up screens. I also like water, the regional view and the entire USA…But most of my screen time is in the 50 mile or so range.
In a macro sense and considering everything the Avidyne can do with HD-TV…I now understand why Cirrus switched so to speak…For me, if Avidyne had eng. monitoring…overall it would be my prefernence at this point after just seeing/using both displays.
As far as doing ‘the upgrade’… not sure I’d do it again and think others should ‘view’ someone else’s upgrade before they just plunk down 2K!
Take Care,
Don, regarding the Sandel, you can clutter or declutter it at will. There are all sorts of user options that allow you to tailor the type and amount of information you need. You can even set up several different levels of clutter and toggle between them.