Latest Revision Adds New Capabilities

Aspen Avionics introduced version 2.2 software for its popular Evolution EFD at the 53rd annual AEA Convention and trade show in April, adding some new user-friendly features that increase functionality and decrease cockpit workload.

Brad Hayden, Aspen's Vice President for Marketing, said that company is now starting to take its "product roadmap" to the next step, building new products for new markets based on the EFD1000 hardware and software, with both the fixed and rotary wing markets showing interest. The version 2.2 software for EFD1000 will include some significant new features, including navmap panning. The feature uses a "gunsight" which the pilot can place over an object or non-object and retrieve information about the targeted item. A second panning function allows scrolling off the map being displayed.

Hayden said there are now multiple paths to the same information. For those pilots who prefer to go through the menus to get information, they can still do that, or use the "gunsight" panning function. "One of the things we really strive to do," Hayden said, "is build a product that conforms to the pilot, and not the other way around." Later this year, Aspen plans to start shipping a backup display, which is essentially an EFD1000 in landscape orientation. It will include seven backup "instruments" in one unit, including attitude, altitude, airspeed, VSI, HSI, GPS flight plan, and GPS steering.

Aspen also plans to make a synthetic vision upgrade available early in 2011. The system will be based on Jeppesen 3 arc second terrain data on a high-resolution display. Hayden says the combination of the hi-res display and the Jeppesen terrain data make a very compelling and realistic representation.

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