Larger Aspen on the horizon?

Challenged

Challenged

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There's a rumor over on BT about Aspen coming out with a unit that has a larger display. I enjoy spreading a good aviation rumor, so consider it spread.
 
Never let a good rumor ,go without passing it on.
 
They need to do something the way the avionics landscape is changing.
I hope it's more robust than the current offering. I was considering one until I heard of a lot of instrument failures. A friend went through 3 himself. Nice instrument if they can make them more reliable..
 
We’re looking at 2 G5’s right now. Hmm...
 
Yea, I heard it comes with all the unlocks so no need to try and pick your way through it or phony sales on a feature that should have already worked in the first place. 10" screen, STCed for all the big boys GPS boxes, dig autopilot, engine monitor great screen....


Oh wait.... Nevermind. thats a Dynon. Carry on.......
 
Unit74 said:
Yea, I heard it comes with all the unlocks so no need to try and pick your way through it or phony sales on a feature that should have already worked in the first place. 10" screen, STCed for all the big boys GPS boxes, dig autopilot, engine monitor great screen....


Oh wait.... Nevermind. thats a Dynon. Carry on.......
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Except for the fact that dynon has maybe 2 STC’s? Personally I like it as a solution, just waiting 2 to 3 years seems excessive.
 
Hope they fixed their failure modes, as it stands I'd rather have a old vac AI and DG

And with the dynon skyview, might be time for aspen to just roll over and die
 
James331 said:
Hope they fixed their failure modes, as it stands I'd rather have a old vac AI and DG

And with the dynon skyview, might be time for aspen to just roll over and die
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Have you had any personal experience with an Aspen failure or is this just a "follow the crowd" uninformed comment?
 
Cruiser said:
Have you had any personal experience with an Aspen failure or is this just a "follow the crowd" uninformed comment?
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I'm just following what I've seen with my own two eyes in more than a couple videos.


 
James331 said:
I'm just following what I've seen with my own two eyes in more than a couple videos.


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Are you equally following all the threads about G5 issues, both on PoA and just about every other aviation forum? And no, I’m not searching for the threads, I’m sure you’ve seen them but wrote them off to some reason.
 
eman1200 said:
Are you equally following all the threads about G5 issues, both on PoA and just about every other aviation forum? And no, I’m not searching for the threads, I’m sure you’ve seen them but wrote them off to some reason.
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I'm not a fan of the G5 ether, their eHSI is like pumpkin spice basic.

I have some hopes for the skyview

But I currently really like my sandel 3308
 
James331 said:
I'm not a fan of the G5 ether, their eHSI is like pumpkin spice basic.
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Maybe I’m just a basic pilot but I am loving my G5 HSI. Coming from an NSD-360 it took a couple hours to get comfortable but it’s been wonderful.

If the skyview were closer on the horizon I’d have held out but I needed an HSI as my NSD 360 was acting up. And the gpss steering was just icing on the cake.

Never even seriously considered an Aspen as it would have been a lot more $ for very little added benefit (for me personally).
 
arkvet said:
Maybe I’m just a basic pilot but I am loving my G5 HSI. Coming from an NSD-360 it took a couple hours to get comfortable but it’s been wonderful.

If the skyview were closer on the horizon I’d have held out but I needed an HSI as my NSD 360 was acting up. And the gpss steering was just icing on the cake.

Never even seriously considered an Aspen as it would have been a lot more $ for very little added benefit (for me personally).
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The G5 is cool, but it's just digital version of a analog HSI, it doesn't have any of the features of a even a older professional grade eHSI

SN3500-360-WSI-0705a.jpg
 
James331 said:
The G5 is cool, but it's just digital version of a analog HSI, it doesn't have any of the features of a even a older professional grade eHSI

SN3500-360-WSI-0705a.jpg
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True. The $3,000 HSI doesn’t have all the features of a $15,000 HSI. I’m shocked and disappointed in Garmin.
 
I’ve compared the feature lists of the G5 to things like the Aspen and the Sandel. What some would call a feature others may call clutter. It’s all in what you need.

I think it’s equally important to consider the rest of the panel (esp the radio stack) when assessing the desires for the HSI. For instance I have an IFD 550 as my gps. It can handle most of the missing features of the G5 HSI and display them in a much more efficient manner.

Now it’s not a G600 or TXI, or heck not even an Aspen if we’re just comparing the spec sheet. I get that. But for the $ it’s an incredible panel upgrade. Consider I did a dual G5 install for less than 10k. So for substantially less than the cost of a new NSD-360 I get a more reliable digital HSI, gpss, 4 hour battery backup, and a backup attitude indicator (takes ~3 seconds to switch HSI to AI).

It is what it is. For me it’s perfect. Would I trade it for a Dynon skyview for comparable $? Hell yeah, but last time I checked that wasn’t an option.
 
Salty said:
... I’m shocked and disappointed in Garmin.
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Best rehabilitation therapy for this common situation is to spend many AMUs on a G500 install. Cures it every time. ;)
 
Salty said:
True. The $3,000 HSI doesn’t have all the features of a $15,000 HSI. I’m shocked and disappointed in Garmin.
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Seeing it's mostly just software, I think garmin didn't include the features because the demographic they were going after didn't care as much about features as having "glass"
 
James331 said:
Seeing it's mostly just software, I think garmin didn't include the features because the demographic they were going after didn't care as much about features as having "glass"
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Yeah. Software is free. You don’t have to pay developers, or testers, they work for free.
 
Cruiser said:
Have you had any personal experience with an Aspen failure or is this just a "follow the crowd" uninformed comment?
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I flew the Aspen in the 310 for about 700 hours. The first one was pinching the LCD screen in one corner causing display issues and one of the knobs didn't work reliably, so they exchanged it. The second one overhead and started smoking in the cockpit 100 miles south of Cozumel with poor ATC radio contact on my way to Belize. I was very unhappy about this. After turning it off and pulling the breaker, 30 minutes later the screen turned on for a few minutes (all white screen). It then turned off a bit later. I was even less happy about that. That's the only time I was worried about having to ditch an airplane in my nearly 3,000 hours of flying. And the 310 was probably the best maintained airplane I ever flew.
 
James331 said:
The G5 is cool, but it's just digital version of a analog HSI, it doesn't have any of the features of a even a older professional grade eHSI
Click to expand...

For the price of one of those a guy could ditch a 530w/430w for GTN, getting a much better screen in the process, and buy dual G5s with their own battery backups and not have a ton of extra data on them.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I flew the Aspen in the 310 for about 700 hours. The first one was pinching the LCD screen in one corner causing display issues and one of the knobs didn't work reliably, so they exchanged it. The second one overhead and started smoking in the cockpit 100 miles south of Cozumel with poor ATC radio contact on my way to Belize. I was very unhappy about this. After turning it off and pulling the breaker, 30 minutes later the screen turned on for a few minutes (all white screen). It then turned off a bit later. I was even less happy about that. That's the only time I was worried about having to ditch an airplane in my nearly 3,000 hours of flying. And the 310 was probably the best maintained airplane I ever flew.
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I think Aspen has done themselves a huge dis-service by selling the drop in replacement concept. When you look at Aspen installs that do not have issues, it generally is where the panel has been gutted and rebuilt around the Aspen. When you look at where Aspen has issues, it mostly seems around heat and is in a legacy drop in. When I installed the Aspen 2500 in the Aerostar, the avionics tech installed a fan behind the panel which pulled the heat away. My bezel was never even warm.

Tim
 
tspear said:
I think Aspen has done themselves a huge dis-service by selling the drop in replacement concept. When you look at Aspen installs that do not have issues, it generally is where the panel has been gutted and rebuilt around the Aspen. When you look at where Aspen has issues, it mostly seems around heat and is in a legacy drop in. When I installed the Aspen 2500 in the Aerostar, the avionics tech installed a fan behind the panel which pulled the heat away. My bezel was never even warm.

Tim
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That could be said about any avionics installations that leave any old equipment in it.
 
bnt83 said:
That could be said about any avionics installations that leave any old equipment in it.
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Well, when the avionics tech did the Aspen install, they removed over 45lbs of wire, a lot of which was not connected. Many owners want to go as cheap as they can, that means leaving stuff behind since it is labor to remove.

Tim
 
bnt83 said:
For the price of one of those a guy could ditch a 530w/430w for GTN, getting a much better screen in the process, and buy dual G5s with their own battery backups and not have a ton of extra data on them.
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Sounds like a lesson on spending money to spend money.
 
tspear said:
I think Aspen has done themselves a huge dis-service by selling the drop in replacement concept. When you look at Aspen installs that do not have issues, it generally is where the panel has been gutted and rebuilt around the Aspen. When you look at where Aspen has issues, it mostly seems around heat and is in a legacy drop in. When I installed the Aspen 2500 in the Aerostar, the avionics tech installed a fan behind the panel which pulled the heat away. My bezel was never even warm.
Click to expand...

Tim, when the Aspen was put in the 310 it was a freshly cut panel that was designed around the Aspen, and I still had the problems. My bezel was always hot, and the first one that I had replaced due to the screen and knob issues was like that from day 1, it was a quality control issue.

I do agree with you that cooling is an issue on the Aspens. My bezel was always hot, and that particular day when mine fried was a worst case example. It was a hot day, the 310 was always a hot airplane, and flying at lower altitudes over the Gulf of Mexico. I was sweating, and I had the radar on (with a big ol' CRT heat generating display) because it was hazy and I didn't want to run into an embedded storm. At the same time, they certified it to not require cooling for the installation and it had to meet the appropriate DO-160 requirements. I had avionics from other manufacturers in the plane as well, and none of them got fried that flight, nor have I had failures of avionics that I can recall in other aircraft I've flown or owned/managed.

However I disagree on doing themselves a disservice as a legacy drop-in. I personally think that was a really intelligent move.
 
Grum.Man said:
I'm just over here wishing someone would come out with a WAAS GPS that didn't cost as much as a car.
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There are lots of WAAS GPSs out there that can be purchased very cheaply.

But you meant one that's IFR certified, and that gets a lot harder to do since you have to get the box TSO'd (as well as the software), pass DO-160 testing, etc. etc. That comes with a cost.
 
I have 2 aspens in one plane, and a G500 in another. I've only ever had 1 issue with my PFD and the screen would flash every 30 minutes or so. That was after 5 years. I contacted aspen and they replaced it at no cost. Because there's no plumbing like my G500 has, they just removed the PFD and slid a new one in. 30 minutes later I was flying away.

My main complaints with the aspen are:
1) There's no "minimums" call out. Its just a beep sound
2) The screens are too bright at night
3) The G500 has magenta and green needles. Aspens are always green. Wish they would differentiate

If true, I'm hoping they come out with a 'trade up' program for the larger screen because I would love the larger screen
 
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