First Customer Installation Delivered 90 Days After STC
Received
Avidyne and S-TEC are wasting no time in getting King Airs
equipped with their new Alliant Integrated Flight Deck into
customers' hands. The companies announced the delivery of the first
such customer-owned Beechcraft King Air 200 this week. The
aircraft, N5PX, is co-owned by Mike Murdock and Deason Dunagan of
Huntsville, AL.
"This panel is a great way to get a thoroughly modern avionics
suite in a great airplane," Murdock said. "With the Alliant system,
we can now take advantage of all the advances like a digital
autopilot, large primary flight displays and such, in a nice clean,
integrated package."
"This is a very exciting time for the entire Alliant team," said
S-TEC President Mel Hilderbrand. "We delivered the first cusomer
installation just 90 days after introducing the system and
receiving the FAA STC."
In addition to the vastly upgraded avionics, the Alliant
installation in the customer’s 1979 King Air also resulted in
a 368-pound increase in useful load, due to the lighter weight
compared to the plane's older avionics. (The weight savings varies
with each aircraft, of course.)
"We were able to completely free up the left side of the nose
avionics bay," Murdock said. "We can get a door installed and use
that as more baggage space. You can never have too much baggage
space when traveling with a family."
"The Alliant system transforms a proven and reliable airframe
with a high-performance glass cockpit," said Mark Sandeen,
Avidyne’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "The Alliant
King Air installation adds beautiful displays, dual-redundant PFDs,
enhanced safety and improved reliability. And it boosts aircraft
performance and utility with a significant increase in useful
load."
Murdock said the increased safety offered by the Alliant
system -- recently selected by ANN as one of
the Best Products of 2006 -- was paramount in the
partners’ decision to purchase the Alliant package.
"We fly our families in this airplane so we’re very
concerned about safety," he told Aero-News. "The Alliant system
gives us a safer airplane. There’s greater redundancy with
dual ADAHRS, reduced pilot workload and greater situational
awareness because everything is right there on the panel for you to
see."
The Alliant Integrated Flight Deck for the Beechcraft King Air
family is the first implementation of Avidyne’s Envision
series of retrofit integrated flight deck products and
S-TEC’s IntelliFlight 2100 Digital Flight Control System.
The standard Alliant Integrated Flight Deck package includes
dual-redundant Avidyne EXP5000 10.4" primary flight displays
(PFDs), an Avidyne EX500 multi-function display (MFD), the S-TEC
IntelliFlight 2100 digital autopilot, Mid-Continent two-inch
standby instruments, and interfaces to most popular traffic,
terrain, lightning, radar and radar altimeter systems.