Arne wrote:
except the box and the knobs
When I had mine done the knobs were renewed as well!
EuroFlyer wrote:
S530 into a 530W, which essentially leaves me with an old, but proven and well known device;
(2) getting an IFD540 instead of the 530 using any discount I can get. The device costs lower and has more options and features compared to
.
The IFD is lightyears easier to use and more capable than the 530W. That’s worth something, too.
I never really heard anything bad about them except here in the Forum
I think it depends on the time period in question, and who you know. I have it from numerous avionics installers (off the record of course, since they are all Avidyne dealers) and from owners that both the QA and the subsequent failure rate was poor in the early days. One European dealer told me of a 100% fault rate on new arrivals. This was not aired much openly because most of these people, and most owners, have obvious reasons to not talk. The owners because they want[ed] resolution within the warranty and getting that is implicitly conditional on you not washing your dirty laundry publicly. Ultimately if you spent 20-30k on 2 of these, you will keep your mouth shut, and keep up the pressure on the dealer, until the issue is fixed. We saw exactly the same stuff when Lycoming were doing deals (under a strict NDA) on the crankshafts.
However I have it from two fairly busy Avidyne installers who I know personally (one Europe, one USA) that matters have improved a lot in the last year or so.
The historical issues will inevitably drag on for a while. One freelance installer I know very well has come back from working on a number of aircraft at a sizeable “GA site” and told me that “every single IFD540 there” was reported as having failed. I don’t know the age of these but very likely they were early ones. This is extra problematic because these installations are possibly out of warranty, or nearly so. And I have it from one Avidyne dealer that Avidyne will not give you anything if you are just a few days out of warranty (which is within their rights, of course).
We have had certain posters here chuck their toys out of the pram and pretend to leave stop posting, saying that EuroGA is “too powerful” and one should not write negative stuff, but which would you rather have? If you want shoe-licking “everything is wonderful” product reviews, you read the US Flyer magazine 
However the same people were happy to write critical stuff themselves 
I don’t know of anybody who has an interest in downgrading Avidyne for fun. More like the opposite – with Garmin eating everybody’s lunch, Avidyne are seen as the underdog, like Apple were when Microsoft owned the world, and they get a lot of support because of that.
Well, Apple has always built better software and hardware but let’s not go down that route :))
Perhaps i’ll get myself an IFD simulator to see how the devices menus and user experience is. Perhaps that’s what matters….
I am not convinced about the Apple analogy, as Apple is a premium product that is (generally) better, but much more expensive, whereas Avidyne are aiming for cheaper, but comparable (maybe slightly better) functionality. The question is whether they sacrifice quality and customer service in that quest.
I would have thought that Linux might be a better analogy? Cheaper, better in some ways, worse in others, patchy customer service.
Sure, my Apple analogy is from ~20 years ago. They were riding a huge wave of anti-Microsoft goodwill. Today Apple is bigger than MS and the MS haters have discarded their long hair and sandals and moved on
I don’t see a significant price difference between a GNS750 and an IFR540. Avidyne are going for
Both above points have a market limited in duration. The first because gradually the GNS market will shrink, and many people won’t replace GNS “W” boxes. The second because Garmin will eventually close the gap.
So Avidyne will have to move forward significantly.
The main problem with Avidyne is that they’re small. By now thy should already have introduced a TXi alternative, and ported their autopilot as a standalone product to be able to retrofit into planes. I just don’t think they have the resources to do so at this time. Maybe they will.
I agree.
I spoke to them at EDNY maybe 7 years ago, listing a bunch of popular airframes as candidates for their DFC90 autopilot. The guy – a senior one too – just said in a disinterested way that they are only interested in serving the Cirrus market (the pre-G1000 market – another shrinking market!) and maybe some Mooneys. Then they announced the King-compatible autopilot servos which if they PMAd them would have opened up a lot of business for them (some 7 and possibly 8 digits a year of sales just replacing burnt out and otherwise shagged King servos for King autopilots) and that was abandoned, like most things they announce.
They need to move forward and “do an Aspen” before Garmin eat their lunch (and Aspen’s, with the TXi range).
Aspen did well not because of special features but because they offered a lot of functionality for a price which was much lower than anything else. It’s no use packing great software into a box costing 15k when some large % of customers have a budget of say 7k and won’t pay 15k even if it has CAT3C autoland. And Aspen had big QA and reliability problems too in their first few years, probably partly because the AHRS they packed into the back of their box generates a lot of heat (due to its temperature stabilisation) and heats up the whole thing.
The cost to make one of these 15k boxes is something like $500 in parts and direct labour…. this makes one very vulnerable.
Well, they appear to have moved their resources from other projects to which they took a commitment, while trampling their customers underfoot.
I’ve just come across this IFD440/540 FAQ. Original link.
It runs from 2011 to around 2016.
There is some new controversy in the USA whereby Avidyne are being accused by their dealers of bypassing the dealers and selling direct. The customers would normally like this of course (if they get a discount off the list price) but the dealers aren’t happy because they don’t get the dealer margin, so they have to make all their money on the installation cost. Previously, dealers would (unofficially) discount the whole job a bit because they got both the dealer margin and the installation, but now they are getting squeezed. I don’t know whether this development is widespread but I do know from my US contacts that I could buy a brand new IFD box anytime I wanted one (the warranty would be another issue of course, with shipping back to the US being the only option for anything) whereas the same contact could not get me a brand new GTN box. Only Experimental builders could get new stuff officially directly (ostensibly without an 8130-3) from both Avidyne and Garmin.
