Hazard Display With No More Holes In Your Panel

It's small, it's affordable -- even moreso for the next month or so -- and it's one of dozens of products on display at Oshkosh. Aspen Avionics says it's moving right along on efforts to certify its AT300 hazard display.

The company is pricing to sell, as well. This month, Aspen brought back its popular $1000 discount on the innovative AT300 hazard display, just in time for AirVenture. Special pricing of $2495 for the non-certified display will be available through any of Aspen’s 35 dealers through the end of July. The AT300 will be on display at the company’s exhibit at AirVenture, booth 2126.

The company also reports the AT300 certification effort remains on schedule. In May the company conducted FAA human factors evaluations of the display, which was followed in June and early July with the successful completion of formal TSO environmental qualification testing.

"Environmental qualification testing forms the most significant and highest risk aspect of our certification effort," Peter Lyons, Aspen’s president. "With the successful completion of these tests, we see no remaining technical obstacles toward receiving our TSO." The company expects to receive TSO authorization from the FAA later this summer, with first customer deliveries of certified product expected to begin shortly after receiving this key FAA approval.

Lyons said AT300 is the only moving map on the market that can be installed in a standard 3 inch instrument hole. No panel modifications or relocation of other instrumentation is required since the AT300, which includes a vertical speed indicator, can directly replace the existing mechanical VSI. Flight plan information from a panel-mount GPS navigator is shown as a magenta track line overlaid on a moving map terrain display that also shows man-made obstructions. Terrain and obstructions are color coded based upon their vertical proximity to the aircraft. The moving map is supplemented with the textual display of the current waypoint ID, desired track, groundspeed, distance to go and estimated time enroute.

"The AT300 offers piston engine aircraft owners many of the same safety and operational benefits that are associated with far more expensive TAWS systems, but at a price point that is more affordable for the piston-engine crowd." said Lyons. "The unit’s moving map is comparable in size to most leading GPS navigators, but unlike those systems, the AT300 can be easily installed among the primary flight instruments directly in front of the pilot, making it easy to read and incorporate into the pilot’s instrument scan."

The AT300 is a small form factor display that combines a vertical speed instrument and moving map display to show the pilot aircraft vertical speed and nearby terrain. The company plans to add WSI data link weather to the unit in a future product release. The AT300 uses the same mechanical form factor as a legacy mechanical Vertical Speed Instrument (VSI), and is designed to replace that instrument. This combination allows the equipment to be easily retrofitted into almost any aircraft that has a VSI indicator and a GPS navigation computer.

FMI: www.aspenavionics.com