Chronicle 003

Pilots eyes age. Aspen listens.

Over the years, like most people, my eyes have had a harder time reading printed material. In the airplane this has manifest itself as needing reading glasses to interpret instrument charts at night, and a host of other reading abilities at short distances in the cockpit. With the panel fixed there is a limit (like still being able to have your feet on the rudder pedals) to how far back your pilot seat can be to read the smaller type faces on a panel. I will be the first to admit that when flying with the Evolution PFD one important setting has been right at the end of my uncorrected eyesight range: The altitude pre-select box in the upper right corner.

Others have commented on this and other PFD display functions, so an Aspen software upgrade has just been released (version 2.2.3) that remedies these issues and enhances a few other features. As with past Evolution software upgrades this one is free, and only requires the labor for your avionics shop (an hour or less) to install and properly document.

Usually a picture says a thousand words, but it was difficult for me to capture the old versus new type font. All I can say is that I no longer find myself straining to set this altitude box.

Click on the image below to open it in a new window -as an animated gif it will toggle between the version 2.x fonts and the new larger 2.2.3 fonts. Depending on the information block, each of the new fonts is at least 20% larger.

 

Larger font comparison (animated gif). Click to open in a new window and the image will toggle between old and new font.

Plus, you should also notice that besides the altitude bug (upper right), there are also larger and more readable fonts for the airspeed bug (upper left), the selected heading and course (bottom center), the air data block (TAS, GS, OAT, WIND, and BARO PRESSURE), minimums bug field, the airspeed and altitude drums, and on the numerical values shown on the airspeed and altitude tapes.

PFD owners asked Aspen to remedy the dropping out of TRFC menu selection every time the unit was shutdown.  This is such a vital feature why not just leave it activated if it was on before shutdown. Aspen responded, so if you have a traffic avoidance system and want to always have it on – it is much easier.

Traffic indicator

In today’s computer age, the ability to make minor, but important, changes to displays on our airplane panel is an added benefit to those who have made the Evolution to glass cockpit devices.

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