iFd540 had a bunch of startup problems and Avidyne was not always fast enough.
However they do seem truthfull and open in it.
The real problem is not enough spare units.
You can read about all developments on www.avidynelive.com.
As far as I am concerned they are much better then the Garmins.
This is a good example of an issue which is “new”:
Another new one for us. Never heard this before.
This is written yesterday. I have an IFD540 with the same issue, for which the replacement unit is taking months now. Funny they didn’t hear that before. The concept might be good, but they are having more issues then they openly admit (as most others as well (Filser / Funkwerk /.FUNKE comes to mind))
What the Avidyne blog doesn’t say is that around 100% of the IFD boxes they ship don’t work, and have to be swapped.
Well, that’s only if the installer is clever and does a full functional test and finds the issue. I would suggest that many won’t do that, and definitely most of the customers won’t find something non-obvious.
Since the issue is not discovered until the customer’s aircraft is in the hangar and stripped out, it’s a huge hassle because the customer is grounded until Avidyne ship a replacement.
And they ship only one at a time so if you had two installed, you wait 2x as long. And that assumes the replacements work.
I don’t get any pleasure from writing this because as I often said my plan is to install 2 of these, and the obvious alternative (GTN750, or 750+650) is not as good usability-wise, and it is only competition which prevents Garmin from selling the same old cash cows for ever.
That sounds bad, i did not know that. I hope they get the quality under control, because their concepts are really modern and well thougt out.
By the way, Peter, have you ever thought about 1 × 440 and 1 × 540? You think 2 × 540 is better for redundancy?
Like the GNS430[W], the GTN650, the IFD440 is OK as a control unit for another box, a UI for a radio, a readout for the fuel totaliser, and not much else, IMHO. The map area is too small.
2×540 (or 2×750 – far more room needed) gives you two properly usable boxes, with full redundancy.
Unfortunately, this situation is a perfect example of where people won’t talk about issues – they are mostly waiting for replacements, and they need dealer goodwill for that. I learnt this early on with Socata / Air Touring who cut me off when I went public, which I did only because they were slow in sorting some issues. However, I had a stronger belief in letting others know about issues than in my own self interest, and I don’t really regret that even now. I also narrowly avoided getting thrown out from the Socata owners’ group; they discussed it behind the scenes. They eventually managed it some years later 
As a customer for toys in these price categories, i see no reason to NOT communicate any problem. I don’t understand that mentality.
Actually, if all this was more transparent, it would create a lot of motivation in those companies to get things right.
I decided to buy an expensive extended warranty from Avidyne. Whatever breaks will be replaced without any extra payment (except freight and installation). Expensive, but fix cost.
Flyer59 wrote:
I decided to buy an expensive extended warranty from Avidyne. Whatever breaks will be replaced without any extra payment (except freight and installation). Expensive, but fix cost.
You mean you signed that extortion letter that basically says that no matter what happens they are totally “irresponsable” ?
That is your interpretation that it’s an “extortion letter”, not mine. I can well understand them, and i signed it. And it has no consequences for me. For that i got an affordable extended avionics warranty which covers the whole system.
The good part: Anybody can decide if they want to sign it themselves.
Flyer59 wrote:
The good part: Anybody can decide if they want to sign it themselves.
Couldn’t agree more …
Flyer59 wrote:
As a customer for toys in these price categories, i see no reason to NOT communicate any problem. I don’t understand that mentality.
… but what does this say about the integrity and “transparency” of the Company ?
It says that they obviously have a quality control problem. I hope they will solve it, because I really like their products, and actually many do.
At the moment Garmin is too powerful but for Avidyne an OEM contract would be what they really need. But even although “R9” is a great glass cockpit (better than G1000 IMHO) it is getting old and they would need a new product. It’s hard to imagine they could develop that without a big manufacturer backing them. Cirrus will stay with Garmin for sure … and there’s almost nobody else that could guarantee any interesting quantity. Maybe they should concentrate on the kitplane market … that’s the only place in SEP where I really see a market.
Personally I would have preferred that Cirrus continued both Avionics lines, as they did for some time: G1000 Perspective and Avidyne (but R9 nit Entegra as they did). But it was probably a good business decision to not do that and concentrate on one version. After all Perspective, once you are really good at it, can do anything you will ever need, and the quality (control) seems to be better too.
But as a 100-150 h p.a. pilot I am conviced that the Avidyne system (especially R9, IFD440/540, DFC90) has many advantages. Both Entegra and R9 offer more IFR capability and features than we will ever need (R9 has synthetic vision too) … and they are really so much easier to learn.
