Chronicle 001
Almost three years ago at this writing I made my annual trek to AIRVENTURE at Oshkosh. With all the heavy lifting at AOPA I rarely had more than 24 hours to take in the many displays and demonstrations of products and airplanes. I have always referred Oshkosh as the “Woodstock” of aviation. With limited time, I always would get some guidance from AOPA PILOT writers as to what new and innovative displays to see. At the 2007 event they all pointed me towards a fledgling young company and their glass cockpit solution which could be fitted to almost any light aircraft. I knew this must be a “hot” product when I could hardly get through the crowd to look at their displays. While similar glass cockpit units had been shown for years at AIRVENTURE, this new company wasn’t targeting experimental aircraft. Aspen was promising, and later delivered, a fully FAA approved system that could be installed in certified airplanes owned by pilots who might not have the resources to upgrade to a glass cockpit by buying a new plane.
Fast forward almost a year and with retirement from my AOPA job approaching, I was offered a position on the Board of this innovative company. Those who know me as the geek who loves to fly with technology were not surprised when I accepted the post. It’s been exciting for me to see the growth of this company during tough economic times, all because they have offered the more than a quarter million owners of older general aviation aircraft worldwide an affordable upgrade path to the safety and reliability of flying with electronic rather than mechanical gauges.
Near the end of my first retirement year, and acquiring a 2002 Beech A-36 Bonanza as a retirement gift to myself, I elected to replace what was a fairly new and pristine factory panel with a 3-display Aspen installation.
The work was done at my new home airport, Clermont County, OH (I69) and SPORTY’s owned Cincinnati Avionics. I learned they had done several installs before my “precious” Bonanza would go through major panel surgery, allaying my fears of taking a perfectly good panel apart and putting in very new technology.
Since this was the first major modification on my relatively new airplane, I opted for a flush mount installation, rather than the less time and dollar consuming “steam gauge” replacement with Aspen’s patented design that fits right into the older gauge cutouts.
The process took less than two weeks, and since I live on the airport I was at the avionics shop everyday, much to installers Scott, Greg and Mike’s chagrin. With more than 30 years of aircraft ownership, I am a pretty tough customer when it comes to avionics. I must say everything went extremely well and the airplane is “better than new”, a title I gave the first AOPA sweepstakes 172 in the early 90’s.
You can’t possibly do this much work on a plane and not have a few bugs, but none of them were the fault of the Aspen product, and none of them were detrimental to safety or immediate use of the airplane. While I made a total of three flights before entering solid, hard IFR, it was more for me to familiarize myself with the equipment than the Aspen units themselves.
My first impression: Three displays were almost “overkill”, since I had an older MFD on the co-pilot side and the displays on the Beech factory installed 530/430 GPS/NAV/COM. However, In the first 5 hours after flying the units, I found myself rarely looking across the panel at any of the other equipment. Everything, I mean everything, needed for flight is directly in front of me, so my eyes are always straight ahead – either over or under the glare shield directly in front of the pilot. I tell my wife to do anything with the co-pilot located MFD, since all the information, even charts, are on the pilot side. In the AOPA corporate jet the high priced MFD and charts were on a center display, rather than in front of the pilot – and the controls were a stretch for accessing the MFD information.
As a pilot and owner I feel real fortunate to have airplanes at both ends of the “tech” spectrum. The Aspen panel has brought more dependability, reliability, safety and IFR capability to my Bonanza than when it was delivered from the factory – just a few short years ago. And, on Spring, Summer and Fall days I can always return to yesterday and bare bones fun flying with my bi-plane.
In coming weeks and months, I plan to chronicle my experiences with the 3 tube Aspen Evolution system in this column. The transition to glass for “steam gauge” pilots, working through complex airspace VFR using the Aspen features, Back Course approaches, etc. will be some of my upcoming topics. And, as always, I welcome your comments and suggestions.
-Phil Boyer
Phil, we have the EFD 1000PFD and the EFD 1000MFD along with a Garmin 430W and S-tec 50 A/P installed in our 1977 Mooney M20F. We also have XM weather on the MFD.
As a CFII I know the absolute importance of maintaining situational awareness at all times, esecially during IMC flight, and the safety of having the Aspen displays as reference is unbelieveable. I can’t wait to get syntheic vision next year.
For my money I don’t see how one could do better than what Aspen has to offer.
Great installation for your MOONEY – with limited panel space and you get so much functionality. And, I am naturally jealous of the speed you get in the 20F vs my Bonanza .
Thanks Phil, and I want to thank you for all you did for us while you were at AOPA. I have been a member since 1967.
I recently downloaded the Approach Plates with Geo reference from Seattle Avionice Software and had the occasion to fly an actual instrument approach using them. They worked great! I will definately be subscribing for updates once my 3 free months are up.
Aspen just keeps adding additional features and improvements to already their great products. I could not be more pleased that I chose Aspen.