Compact 8" PFD Fits Almost All GA Planes

Avidyne introduced the Entegra PFD4000, a new compact, 8-inch primary flight display system, this week at AirVenture 2008. The panel is designed to fit virtually any general aviation aircraft, adding the enhanced situational awareness and reliability of an all-glass flight deck.

The PFD4000 is designed as a "6-pack" replacement that will fit in virtually any panel space and offers traditional primary flight instrumentation, including support for autopilot and flight director as well as altitude pre-select, vertical speed select and heading select modes.

Just like the Entegra EXP5000, it's bigger brother, the PFD4000 has a wide-format artificial horizon, intuitive trend tapes for altitude, airspeed, and vertical speed, a full horizontal situation indicator (HSI) with moving map presentation of flight plan data and an RMI/Bearing pointer overlay, as well as a full-time wind vector -- all within the pilot's primary field of view.

The PFD4000 also offers one-button access to frequent pilot settings such as altitude, vertical speed, and heading, as well as a dedicated BARO knob, make it easy to use. It is designed to have a learning curve of less than five minutes.

"The introduction of the PFD4000 is consistent with Avidyne's long term mission of 'Making Flying Simple' for an expanded range of pilots and airframes by now offering a portfolio of glass cockpit options on more aircraft than any other vendor in general aviation," stated Rob Higby, the company's vice president of Marketing, Sales and Service.

"Further, the modular design of our PFDs provides customers with the option of an upgrade platform to support premium services such as Synthetic Vision (SVS), Enhanced Vision (EVS), and Highway in the Sky (HITS) displays as they become available. It's the latest example of how we are becoming the 'go-to' supplier of glass flight decks across the spectrum of general aviation aircraft by creating a comprehensive line of scalable, upgradeable, and 'grow as you go' MFDs, PFDs and IFDs," he added.

With its super-bright 8-inch diagonal LED-backlit XGA display (1024x768), the PFD4000 is easily readable in sunlit conditions. It integrates all of the primary flight instruments into a single, easy-to-use display including a horizontal situation indicator (HSI) which puts advanced navigation displays in the pilot's primary field of view. Fully integrated with the airplane's VLOC/ GPS, the PFD4000 provides synchronized switching from the en route phase of flight to the approach phase. Its 6-second trend indicators based on the airplane's altitude, airspeed and heading also help reduce the pilot's workload and increase his or her precision when changing or maintaining critical airspeeds and altitudes.

The PFD4000 is easy to install, calibrate, troubleshoot and repair with its self-diagnostic, built-in test capability. It uses Avidyne's AHR300 remote-mounted, solid-state Air Data/Attitude and Heading Reference System (ADAHRS) to provide its roll, pitch, heading, yaw and rate data. The AHR300 has an integrated air data computer which is connected to the pitot-static system to provide airspeed, altitude, vertical speed and outside air temperature (OAT) and to continually update the winds aloft and true airspeed indications on the display.  In addition, it features an Aircraft Configuration Module (ACM) which stores and maintains all of the aircraft's system settings so there's no need for recalibration or reconfiguration in the event of an equipment change. A bezel-mounted USB port also makes software updates easy and convenient. A remote-mounted MPI130 I/O interface unit supports a wide variety of GPS, FMS, V/LOC radios and autopilots.

In dual-PFD4000 installations, Avidyne's unique Cross-Compare System (CCS) monitors both ADAHRS and provides visual alerts in the event of system or navigational anomalies. When coupled with the autopilot, the PFD 4000 offers selection bugs and digital readouts for altitude preselection and vertical speed and heading choices.

Avidyne says the PFD4000 will be "competitively" priced, and available sometime in 2009.

FMI: www.avidyne.com