avionics

Esterline CMC Electronics‘ SmartDeck integrated avionics system has its first OEM customer after Evektor of the Czech Republic this week announced the cockpit’s selection aboard the multipurpose EV-55 Outback twin turboprop. SmartDeck has had a long gestation, starting out in the mid 1990s as a project begun by Goodrich. The cockpit system has been improved […]

AOPA’s Air Safety Institute recently released The Accident Record of Technologically Advanced Airplanes — a report that concludes that the introduction of TAAs (technologically advance aircraft; the definition is extremely broad) has not decreased accident rates, as some expected to happen. In fact, newer glass cockpit airplanes had “demonstrably higher rates of accidents during takeoffs, […]

Robinson Helicopter is looking at making the Aspen Evolution Flight Display (EFD) a factory installed option, Robinson head Kurt Robinson said at Heli-Expo. During his remarks, Robinson praised the compact form factor and low cost of the Aspen option, while stopping short of giving any firm promises or timetables for availability as, he explained, the […]

At the indoor static at Heli-Expo Garmin was showing off its STC retrofit of the G500H flat panel avionics into the popular Robinson R44 four-place piston powered helicopter. The STC can be applied to every iteration of the R44, including those with Spartan panels — the seven hole versions — and those with all the […]

__Never have I enjoyed glass so much. This is even better than the Learjet martini glasses a friend gave to me — much more expensive too. Nor am I speaking of Dale Chihuly’s glass concoctions. What we’ve done, my wife and I, is to replace the old instruments in our 31-year-old Cheyenne with the Garmin […]

(February 2012) The first time I climbed into the Remos G-3 it was for my Sport Pilot discovery flight. The “shiny” Dynon Avionics glass and Garmin GPS, navcom and radio did not go unnoticed as I scanned the panel. “Wow, this Sport Pilot stuff is cool,” I thought. Especially since prior to this flight I […]

(February 2012) Flat-panel avionics systems for light airplanes, which seemed like the stuff of science fiction just a handful of years ago, have been around long enough to advance to a second generation. As far as Garmin avionics are concerned, that second generation of glass panels takes the form of G2000, a system that makes […]

European aviators can now install Garmin’s GTN 650 and 750 GPS/navcom systems after EASA signed off the validation paperwork for the STC Garmin received from the FAA in March for the touchscreen navigators. To achieve EASA’s validation, the Garmin 650 and 750 had to meet European regulatory requirements, such as 8.33-kHz VHF communication, immunity from […]

(October 2011) If you’ve ever wished you could create a flight plan on your iPad and then somehow automatically beam it to the avionics in your airplane, you’re in luck. Aspen Avionics has introduced a Wi-Fi-based technology called Connected Panel that will let pilots do just that — and a whole lot more. The first […]

Hawker Beechcraft‘s Global Customer Support (GCS) unit announced a synthetic-vision upgrade program for all airplanes in the Hawker and Beechcraft families equipped with Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21. The upgrade requires the addition of a new LRU to the Pro Line 21 platform. The hardware provides the flight crew with a simulated 3D view of […]