It’s fair to say that Avidyne launched the glass cockpit revolution for light aircraft with its groundbreaking Entegra, which quickly became standard equipment in the Cirrus line. At AirVenture this week, Avidyne announced a new expansion of its glass product suite intended specifically for the aftermarket. The latest major glass product is the PFD4000, an 8-inch EFIS designed to fit into the space occupied by a standard legacy six-pack instrument grouping.
The PFD4000 is a single ADAHRS design with flight director and attitude output for autopilot control with features such as altitude pre-select, vertical speed select and heading select modes. The PFD4000 is integrated with the airplane’s VLOC/GPS and offered synchronized switching from enroute flight to the approach phase. It also has six-second trend indicators based on the airplane’s altitude, airspeed and heading to help reduce the pilot’s workload. With the PFD4000, Avidyne joins an increasingly crowded field of contenders for the aftermarket glass market but hopes to distinguish its products with a high-definition LED-backlit XGA display (1024 by 768 pixels) that’s not just sunlight readable but is vivid in all lighting conditions. The PFD4000 is of a modular design will that support synthetic vision (SVS) and highway in the sky (HITS) upgrades and they become available. Prices weren’t announced at the show, but Avidyne says the PFD4000 will be available in 2009 at competitive prices. For more, hear this detailed podcast.
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