Exploring A “New Category” of Avionics…

It would seem logical to ask what a GPS NAV/COM radio has to do with the attitude of the airplane or synthetic vision, and that’s the question ANN News Editor, Tom Patton, sought the answer to when he talked with Tom Harper, the Director of Marketing for the Avidyne Corporation. This conversation took place at Sun ‘n Fun 2016.

Avidyne has come out with a new unit called the IFD550. The IFD550 has the navigation and communication features of their 540, but an attitude reference system has been added. Now, the display can also be used to provide attitude reference and synthetic vision; as Harper said, “it kind of opens up a new category”.

Harper says this allows a pilot to move into a system that has features such as synthetic vision and attitude reference, yet it’s available without going to the full-blown all glass cockpit. Better yet, some of the newer features in the IFD550 can also be retrofitted into other IFD models with the 10.2 software upgrade.

The old saying that a picture is worth 1000 words is absolutely fact when it comes to understanding new avionics equipment. As Avidyne’s Tom Harper talks about the features, our video folks grabbed an up-close look as each feature is described. By the way, did you know there are two types of synthetic vision? Watch, and be amazed.

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