King HSI - RIP

I have the speed and altitude tapes hidden on mine as I have these independently shown on separate analog instruments and find using the Aspen much less cluttered without them.
I have approx 1,500 hrs behind my EFD1000 and rate it very highly. I have had one ACU fail and one antenna in 7 years, both of which were replaced under good grace by Aspen after the warranty had run out. They do appear to stand behind their product, and are a real pleasure to deal with as a company.

I have just ordered the new AOA upgrade, and would certainly buy from them again.

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The most difficult thing about going to glass is the amount of data that is avalable in a small space and de-cluttering this in your mind to avoid information overload.

The Aspen has four declutter levels which can be accessed trough the menu button. Changing from 360 degrees HSI mode to ARC HSI mode will also improve readability.
The VSI is by default only visible when VSI is active, but can also be set to be fixed ON for those who find this annoying.

The most difficult thing about going to glass is the amount of data that is avalable in a small space and de-cluttering this in your mind to avoid information overload.

The Aspen is a very clever bit of kit but the very act of fitting it into two conventional instrument holes has resulted in what looks at first glance a very cluttered display, this not being helped by the fact that most of the instruments it is intended to replace being moved around the panel. There is no doubt that with practice the Aspen would become easy to use but achieving the ability to use it instinctively and without error will take time.

The G500 in the TB20 ( photo on page 1 ) is much less cluttered and is likely to be much easier to use from day one as it does not have the other old instruments to destract the eye.

As illustrated above the Aspen has a very good resolution quality but the photo was taken from much closer to the panel than one would normally veiw it when flying, with such a small display area it is not the display resolution that I have issue with……… It is the ability of my 58 year old eyes to veiw it especially at night after 5 hours of flying.

An Aspen fit is much cheaper than a G500 so I guess that you gets what you pay for in terms of ease of use and size of display.

The biggest thing when moving from a classic HSI to any EFIS Nav display is the amount of clutter it adds, the current heading and the CDI needle are as readable as the mechanical devices, IMO, but there are a good two dozen additional bits in the same space, some useful, some less so.

Look at the example above – you have the softbutton menu on the side and the bottom (not great on that narrow display, but necessary), a flight plan display (very good feature, but also adds the CDI replacement at the bottom), the current waypoint with DTK,DIST, and EET (nice to have, depending on taste), a digital readout of current course set, heading selected, and heading flown (nice to have for precision), a current track over ground pointer, a FPM readout (in the wrong place,IMO)

Once you get used to it, it is great. If you go to normal HSI mode an lose the map, the representation is a bit simpler.

Just for anyone else interested in the Aspen, here’s a photo of the EFD1000 in my Tiger. I would not worry about comparison with mechanical HSI units – you can see the quality of resolution. I particularly like the arc mode which is much better than the execution of arc in G1000 etc.

There are so many cheap KI-525’s on the marked (since everybody is upgrading), that you can have 2 on the shelf when the installed one goes TU.
If the OPS is EASA reg, it does need a Tag, and that makes it somewhat more complicated.

For the N-reg’s, its a no brainer. An OH is 2500$+, and when you can get a full system for about 800-1200$ on ebay or on the different forums, that doesn’t make any sense.

Problem with upgrading to the ASPEN/GARMIN screens is that when the warranty expires(2 years), you use a small fortune each year for extended warranty/insurance.

Problem is that these Glass options are really sexy. And most pilots like sexy…..

Peter wrote:

There are also some gotchas; I don’t recall the details but there is something concerning a stormscope which needs some signal which the EFD1000 cannot generate so those people had to retain the KG102A even if they put in the Aspen. The devil is in the detail, as always.

I think this is a thing of the past. L3 systems use digital heading inputs, the Insight system uses stepper drive when connected to KI-525. The Aspen doesn’t do stepper output, but does the ARINC 407 (synchro) and the Insight strike finder can be rewired to do ARINC 407 as well. This feature does require the ACU2 unit from Aspen as additional equipment.

Aspen EFD1000 is a great device.
I did find a picture on the WWW with both KI525 and EFD1000 in the same panel.
So you can see what is the best readable

My opinion the KI525 is mutch better readable.
But the EFD1000 is so mutch more than just an HSI, ATT-ind

Your local Aspen avionics shop should have demo stand. You might be able to give it a try, as it is the real thing, and you could play with it for some time.

You could also find the EFD-1000 PFD Pilot’s guide here: EFD1000 PFD Pilot Guide

You should also find out if your aircraft is listed on their AML STC, else it would be very expensive to get it installed, in that case repair, Sandel HSI or G500 might be more suiteable.