5 New Instruments Released at AEA 2022

Mid-Continent Instruments and Avionics added to their Flex line of 2-inch digital instrumentation products, unveiling 5 new units at the annual AEA International Convention and Trade Show.

The Flex series now includes digital Counter Drum Encoding Altimeters, Airspeed Indicators, GPS Clocks, Battery ACUs, and Attitude Indicators, in addition to a range of previous releases. The new drum encoding altimeter is certified to 55,000 feet AGL with user-selectable functions for VSI, 6-second vertical trend, altitude target, approach minimums alerts, and barometric settings. The Flex Airspeed Indicator offers a hybrid readout with configurable range markings, saving the time and cost of adapting mechanical range markings to the aircraft.

The digital nature of all Flex products saves a great deal of trouble, allowing for the display of groundspeed and TAS with an external ARINC input. Other features like selectable Mach numbers and a dynamic MMO barber pole round out the ASI. 

The Flex line GPS Clock naturally includes nearly all the functions expected of a digital timepiece on the flight deck, from times in local, UTC, timers, countdowns, stopwatches, time to waypoint, Hobbs, and date. The Flex, however, adds syncing with an external GPS source or external equipment, allowing further integration between instruments alongside ETA for navigational waypoints. 

The Flex Battery ACU displays parameters using True Blue Power's Gen 5 Li-ion battery parameters, showing more accurate battery status and state, level of charge, health, and the usual slate of battery metrics. 

Finally, the Flex Attitude Indicator includes attitude, slip, and heading by way of an optional MD32 magnetometer. 

Each of the instruments uses a 2-inch daylight-readable LCD and a simple, robust user interface. The Flex line is all TSO-certified and capable of automatic dimming or external lighting control, with easy customization or field updates using the standard USB-A port. Each unit is backed by a 2-year warranty. 

FMI: www.mcico.com