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My pilot program experiences with dual IFD540s

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Gring View Drop Down
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    Posted: 11 Apr 2014 at 7:53am
There has been a lot of questions on pilot program experiences of the IFD540.  What follows are my experiences with dual IFD540s in my aircraft.  Part of this was posted in the "Dual IFD techniques" thread. 
 
I have had the privelage of taking part in the Avidyne Pilot Program and have installed my preordered dual IFD540s and AXP340 transponder. The transponder is currently certified and shipping. The AMX240 audio panel is also certified and I will be installing one in my aircraft during the next avionics downtime.
 
At the time of this writing, I have approximately 18 hours flying behind the IFDs, flying 3-4 times per week.  I have taken a few longer trips, but most of the time was spent with shorter trips going through a list of items I wanted to test and items I wanted to ensure I knew the procedures cold given I fly IMC/IFR quite a bit.  I have one flight in IMC with 3 approaches and the IFDs worked very well.  One was flown coupled with the autopilot, and the other two were hand flown.

I know there has been a lot of discussion about this product, and I can tell you from the last two years, I have not seen anyone as passionate about this space than the Avidyne team, and it has been interesting to watch the product development from the sidelines. I'm excited for their future here in 2014.
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I've now spent some time with the Dual IFD setup and thought I'd post my technique and comments along with why I've chosen to do things this way. I have gone through and changed many of the user settings to get the unit configured to my liking

My airplane has traditional steam gauges with a King KFC200 AP/Flight Director and HSI setup. It has JPI fuel flow, on board weather, active traffic, lightning detection. If I had a PFD I would change the left side datablock on the top IFD to replace the current info with the traffic thumbnail and 3rd comm since I would have all of the current information on the PFD.

I have the standard F33A radio stack which is right of center enough that it requires an external ennuciator. If you have the choice, I would mount it as close to you as practical. I am considering modifying the panel to move one of the IFDs to the center and installing a JPI930. I'm also older and now require reading glasses with my contacts, so that may factor into some of my decisions.

I tend to be a KISS kind of guy so I don't usually want to look at a lot of clutter on the screens. That said, I use the top IFD in track up arc mode with a 10-15nm range while the bottom IFD I have on North up at a 40-60nm range. The top IFD has Nexrad weather, FLTA, and keyboard convienence on. I have swapped back and forth on having the TA on and off. I can't decide. If I had a PFD with SV, then I would for sure have it off (redundant to the PFD). (I have since decided that I like the TA on on the top IFD which is zoomed in and TA off on the second IFD which is generally left zoomed out.)  The bottom IFD has Lightning sensor on. and both display traffic including N-numbers. This gives me one IFD that is my primary navigation system that shows me tactically where I am going and a second IFD that gives me situational awareness (oriented North) and is my data entry box for flight plans, charting, etc.

The top IFD has auto switching of VORs on which is useful when flying an ILS approach. The bottom IFD does not have this turned on because I generally set the second VOR to a crossing radial as I'm flying cross country and so I need to be able to manually control it.

I have not played with adding additional com channels on the screen. I use the top two for in air frequencies (tower, ctaf, approach, departure) and the bottom two for ground based frequencies (clearance, ground, atis). I've always done it this way and it has worked well. However, when I put a PFD in, I'll probably use the standard traffic datablock setup with the 3rd com frequency on the top IFD as I can see some benefit for it. As an aside note, I have my top antenna connected to the bottom IFD to better communicate with ground stations, and the belly mounted antenna connected to the top IFD for when I'm in the air communicating with ground based stations. This seems to work very well.

I spent a lot of time on the MAP setup screen and which layer has what information. Although I fly a lot of IFR, I don't really want to be looking at airway routes, waypoint fixes cluttering up the screen, however, I do want the option to see them. I generally have the map in the middle nav priority. I set the highest nav priority with airways and waypoints, but turned them off on the middle nav priority. I like to see all of the airspace around me, so that is on for all airspace without any altitude filters. I show all airports since I land at grass strips as well as towered Class B airports. I show lables on most things on the screen, but remember, I don't have a lot of things on my screen. On the land overlay, I removed most of the stuff except for terrain features. As I write this, I can't remember if there is a way to display state boundaries and will have to check on that on today's flight. I would turn that on.

I come from a G430 / MFD environment, so I always had the 430 in the CDI scale mode where I had the 6 datablocks. I guess I didn't realize how much I used the TRK over DTK and the CDI scale when flying. I've tried a few different things to get the IFD to operate similarly and have been rethinking how best to use this information. No conclusion yet, other than a PFD would eliminate this issue for me.

The top IFD right side datablocks are configured with waypoint time / distance / Trk information. with VSR and Minimum Safe Altitude, again tacitcal - where am I going. The bottom IFD has a mixture of information - Nearest airport, times, fuel and alarm count. I tend to fly with the data blocks hidden and only expand them when I want to know about something. Again, a PFD would have the next waypoint info on it, minimizing the need to expand the datablock.

On approaches I have the top IFD on map mode and the bottom IFD on Chart mode. I have turned the charts to day mode which is my preference and seems to work well at night. I also spent a lot of time with the lighting settings in maintenance mode to get the dimbus and photocell to work for me.

I find that I mostly use the buttons and rarely use the touch screen. Not that one is bad, with few exceptions, I find that I can use most all of the features from the buttons as fast as I can with the touch screen. The screen performance is very, very fast and there is no waiting or redrawing when panning and rescaling.

The most recent issue with Garmin removing approaches does not apply to the Avidyne units. I have all of the removed airport approach procedures in the US database and fully selectable.

The functionality of these things is awesome. I know the G480 guys will feel right at home. The functions I've found that I like the most are as follows (in no particular order):

Fuel range rings - These have been great when stretching fuel and looking for potential fuel stops. You know exactly where you will be and can begin looking for airports if you haven't planned a specific stop

iPAD/iPhone charging - The USB port in the unit allows for charging of the devices directly from the IFD

Vertical constraints on waypoints - This is useful for non precision approaches and other phases of flight. There is a top of descent marker on the magenta line and a chime when time to step down at the prescribed vertical speed rate.

Dual IFD interaction - This is perhaps one of the best features because it allows the two units to behave in a manner that makes the screen real estate much larger than it really is. When entry on one datablock, a full QWERTY keyboard is displayed on the other IFD for entry.

OBS mode and VLOC mode - Both of these modes draw a line on the screen which you can move with the CDI indicator on the NAV or HSI head. I tend to put crossing radials on the units as I fly cross country and this allows for visibility via a green/white line on the screen.

GeoFill - This single feature is responsible for the significant reduction of button turns and click for entry of flight plans. Long flight plans can be entered very quickly.

Victor Airways - Finally in the NorthEast we can fly victor airways (I know the 750 does this too).

Flight plan preview - While building the flight plan and/or when selecting an apporach it is all previewed on the screen so you get situational awareness when selecting transitions or IAFs

Very flexibility user configuration - Data blocks, screen, and user options are very, very configurable.

Cool GPS status page - Not a real big deal, but this page gives you information on the HPL/VPL and HFOM/VFOM

TAWSlike features - The units have both Terrain Awareness (TA) AND Forward Looking Terain Alerting (FLTA). These functions are very cool and are part of the certified TAWS in other equipment.

Name entry for NAV frequencies - To enter a NAV frequency, I can enter PWL rather than 114.3 and it will decode and input the correct frequency.

User waypoints identified as Airports - I fly into a private race track country club and land on the back straightaway. I have been able to identify the waypoint as an airport with a specific altitude. This keeps the boxes from yelling at me because of terrain warnings.

Georeferenced chats - Simply pretty cool

Chart updates - One subscription for both IFDs. I download the data on to 1 or 2 USB devices and upgrade both my IFDs from one subscription.  The first update cycle took 13:22 minutes to update US Charts (10ish minutes), Navigation Data (3ish minutes), and Obstacles (5 seconds)

I'm sure there is more, but these are the highlights and why I like the devices.

Note, the picture below is in the hangar with no GPS signal, so the Top IFD defaults to the North Up mode.

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Edited by Gring - 11 Apr 2014 at 8:09am
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oskrypuch View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote oskrypuch Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Apr 2014 at 10:12pm
Thanks for taking to time to titillate us!

Well, as LEAST we have the simulator, for now. 

* Orest

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