In 1982, journalist Tracy Kidder won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Soul of a New Machine,” a book that described the development of a next-generation computer by Data General Corp. and its competitor Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). For engineers in the story, the time-to-market pressure was constant. As Wikipedia notes, “The ‘soul’ of the new machine comes from the dedicated engineers who bring it to life with their endless hours of attention and toil. The soul is theirs, stored in silicon and microcode.”
February 2015-
Thirty-three years later, a similar narrative is playing out just 30 miles from the site of that original drama. Avidyne Corp. of Lincoln, Mass., has introduced the IFD540, a plug-and-play GPS Nav/Com. Pilots are already embracing this exciting new choice in the avionics market. Avidyne’s next product, the IFD440, should be available this spring.
Sears had made more than enough money to retire at age 46, but didn’t. He’d fallen in love with aviation while serving as a military police officer with the United States Marines. He learned to fly with the Armed Services Aero Club in Okinawa, Japan. After returning to San Diego in 1988, he joined some partners to buy a Cessna 152 and 172XP.
That led to the purchase of faster planes, then a high performance aircraft, and then to Piper’s M-Class. The turbine powered Meridian that Sears purchased was ideal for shuttling clients of his internet company to different locations in
California and Arizona.
Within a few years, Sears wanted even more performance and was planning to purchase a Cessna jet. He trained with LOFT at Palomar Airport in Carlsbad, Calif (KCRQ). Although he wasn’t looking for a job, the managers were so impressed with his demeanor and flying, they hired him as an instructor. Two years later, Sears became a partner in the company and its vice president of sales.
Today Sears has logged 7,000 hours in fixed-wing aircraft and flies a Seneca II. “My girlfriend and I have seven kids between us and two homes that are 350 miles apart,” he said. The couple needed a plane that could get them where they needed to go, but more economically than a jet.
“At the flight school we had an instructor who purchased a 1978 Seneca but his partner got cancer so it came up for sale. The plane was in great shape and the engines were nearly new, but the panel was old. I knew that would be easy to upgrade, so I bought it.”
Avidyne’s IFD540
The centerpiece of every modern GA panel is its Nav/Com hardware. The Seneca had a Garmin 430, an MX20 MFD, King KY 96 radio and King KNS 80 RNAV. It was solid equipment, but a bit dated.
In considering ways to go about modernizing the Seneca, Sears recalled his experience with the Meridian and other planes he had owned that had Avidyne’s high resolution displays and other high-end electronics installed.
Most General Aviation pilots use GPS in the simplest way possible: Direct To. If they’re flying IFR, Garmin units make it easy to string together VORs and the like, but many pilots—including Sears—would suggest that isn’t a true FMS, and can become challenging when workloads increase.
“As I was sorting through options for my new panel, I called Avidyne and asked, ‘I know this 540/440 thing is coming. Where does it stand?’ The rep said it was around the corner, so I sent in my deposit for dual IFD540s, the 605a traffic system and a 340 transponder.”
Avidyne’s goal with the IFD540 and IFD440 was to produce a modern GPS Nav/Com that can be installed in an existing tray in less than a minute. It does everything that similar systems do—and lots more—thanks to a powerful flight management system based on the company’s R9 platform.
The Avidyne IFD540/440 reduces workloads while enhancing safety. Built-in features include WAAS, terrain awareness, aural warnings and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth integration. It has a full-featured touch screen which can be zoomed in and out, plus a complement of buttons for easy use in turbulence.
Avidyne’s chief engineer and the R9 platform
The chief architect behind the system is Steve “Jake” Jacobson, who turned down a spot at MIT to attend the Air Force Academy and later become a decorated A-10 “Warthog” attack pilot. After his service in combat missions in Bosnia and during Operation Desert Storm, Jacobson became an Air Force test pilot in California.
Jacobson also holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Northeastern University—and before his work at Avidyne, he was involved in defense industry work on avionics for Draper Laboratories in Massachusetts.
“I visited to say hi to a friend,” Jacobson said. “They showed me boxes they were creating for GA and I said, ‘Neat, but I’m not interested.’
“Rick Willard—who used to be a Navy fighter pilot and became my boss—said, ‘Yeah, but let me show you what we’re really working on.’ It was synthetic vision and highway-in-the-sky stuff; real cutting-edge.
“I took the job to work on synthetic vision and it’s been bliss ever since,” he continued.
Avidyne pioneered the integrated flight deck in General Aviation and developed the highly regarded R9 system that fully integrates hardware and software into a seamless entity.
The IFD540 and IFD440 were created to compress a lot of that power into a small package that can neatly replace other avionics systems and save pilots a huge amount of installation expense.
“People mocked us when we came up with the R9 display,” said Jacobson. “The digital readouts of your airspeed, altitude and heading were in a gigantic, almost cartoonish font. But who were the customers? Guys in their fifties and sixties. Their eyes are falling off the cliff, like mine are—and they might find themselves in a high-workload environment with bad weather at night in an unfamiliar area.”
The concept at work here, says Jacobson, is, “Don’t give me a million things on a piece of glass. I want to know what’s important without having to pick through a lot of menus or information.”
Jacobson added, “We now have all the building blocks in place to fully serve the GA community. The 540/440 products are just the latest innovations. Other products are coming down the pike that will thrill pilots.”
Having a choice is important
Richard Sears was certainly thrilled when Howard Aviation in LaVerne, Calif. finished the upgrade on his plane in October 2014. No glass panel was installed on the left side, since Sears typically punches through a marine layer in San Diego and shoots the occasional ILS approach. He stays out of the flight levels and rarely sees bad weather between Arizona and Southern California, so the standard six-pack of flight instruments was adequate.
“, on my IFD540, I can initiate a hold at any point. If I want to create a waypoint, I can put a hold there.” Things like that are what Sears likes about the unit. He continued, “When pilots come to our flight center at LOFT, I ask them what’s the number-one thing that scares them. Most of them tell me ‘holds.’”
“Avidyne’s hardware certainly stacks up with other manufacturers and has extremely well-thought-out integration. In fact, I would much rather fly behind an Entegra system,” he said.
“I think the company will really shine with the 540 and 440. That’s why I’m comfortable investing $30,000 worth of their hardware in my panel.”
Sears added, “Competition and choice are really important for all of us who love aviation. My flight training company is smaller than my competition, too—but we compete very successfully and represent a fantastic option. So does Avidyne.”
Kevin Knight is a 1,000-hour instrument rated pilot in Dallas. He has many fond memories of flying a Piper Cherokee 180 around New Zealand when he was studying there on a fellowship. Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
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