2012 Oshkosh Pre-show News

Here’s a quick preview of what Avidyne is bringing to Oshkosh this year.

IFD540 News:

We’ll be bringing several IFD540 systems to the show and they will be in our booth.  One of those stations will be the dual IFD540 system that we first unveiled at Sun-n-Fun 2012 and helped demonstrate the digital Databus connection between the two and the advantages it brings.

We’ve made big strides in feature build-out since the spring shows and are flying the units in aircraft on a regular basis.  We did not however spend much time to bring most of those feature adds into the demo software that we’ll have in our booth.  The vast majority of our effort is focused on the hardware qualification of the units and lab/flight testing the feature adds that are going in everyday.

A lot of people are interested in hearing about the not-yet-disclosed features of the IFD540 but I’m afraid we’re going to stay tight-lipped on that content until we’re closer to the cert date.

As for certification schedules, we’re making enough forward progress and are tracking our internal development and certification schedules such that we believe we’ll be done with development at the very end of 2012 at which time we fully transition to the end-game certification activities.  Certification tasks will likely take a few months taking us into the first part of 2013.

One side note on the IFD540 demo units – they do not have the intended anti-glare, anti-reflection coatings on the glass.  This means the demo units are very reflective and not as bright as the production units will be.

IFD440 News:

This is the biggest news for Avidyne at this show.  We unveiled the IFD440 (slide-in replacement for the GNS-430/430W) earlier in July at the Cirrus Migration in Duluth.  This unit is really just a smaller form-factor IFD540.  It is a follow-on product that is queued up for delivery approximately 6 months behind the IFD540.

We will not have any IFD440 demo units at Oshkosh since the IFD540 remains our priority. Brochures will be available and the IFD540 should serve as a good demo proxy for those interested in seeing operation.

The Avidyne Sales crew are running a very attractive early deposit program for this product.

DFC90 News:

We’ve gotten a lot closer to the initial certification of the combined Avidyne DFC90 and Aspen PFD since Sun-n-Fun but we have a little bit still to go.

We may be in official FAA flight test with their test pilots the week of Oshkosh and if not, it should be immediately after.

As soon as we do receive the initial DFC90-Aspen STC, we’ll move to update our Cirrus STC and then jump right into FAA submission for the Bonanza and Baron families.  Those initial Baron and Bonanza certs will cover both 14V and 28V previously STec-equipped aircraft with the Aspen PFD.  Then we can expand our certs to add Century servo support and our own Avidyne ASA575 servo support.  The PA32 should be in the mix too.

We have autopilot software models now for the BE-33, 35, 36 and 55 and hope to generate the 58-series Baron sometime in August.

Servo development and certification continues to push ahead.  The ASA575 should be through qual at end of 2012 so that deliveries are expected to begin in the first half of 2013.

R9 News:

Release 9.3 is the release that contains the much awaited Synthetic Vision update.  We’re still a few months away from certification. We are still slogging our way through a mountain of work and we share the strong desire of the R9 customers to get this finished.

AXP340 ADS-B Transponder:

The AXP340 transponder was announced at Oshkosh 2011 and it remains on track to be capable of being certified and shipping later this year.  We may however, time the release to be closer to the IFD540 release intentionally.  As you may recall, this transponder has the Avidyne look-and-feel user interface and is a ADS-B Out, Mode S transponder that is a plug-and-play replacement for the KT76A/KT78A panel mount transponder.

AMX240 Audio Panel:

The AMX240 audio panel was also announced at Oshkosh 2011 and it remains on track to be capable of being certified and shipping at the end of this year as well.  And like the AXP340, we may intentionally time the release to be closer to the IFD540.

 Customer Appreciation Party

Avidyne is hosting our annual Customer Appreciation Party just outside our display hangar on Tuesday, 24 July, starting at 5pm (outside, east side of Building B).    If you’re interested in attending, please ensure we have a RVSP from you so we ensure we have ample food and beverage available.   This annual party has become very popular and a fun event.  I know I’ll be there and would love to hear more feedback, good or bad, on how we’re doing.

Hope to see you at the show!