Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Aspen E5 - another non-TSO but STCd product

No Problem Peter! I will be regularly monitoring your forum and am here to answer any questions. Please bring to my attention any issues that I may miss while traveling, etc. Email is [email protected] if you need to reach me direct. Happy Flying!

I for one really welcome manufacturer input for this sort of thing.
It’s great to debate and confer about this stuff, and there are many very experienced people on here with valuable knowledge.
However, unless very experienced yourself, it can be difficult sometimes to differentiate between opinions and incorrect information presented as hard facts.
Thats where I feel expert manufacturer input can help. Especially when backed up by the valuable input from some of the installer experts.

United Kingdom

Aspen is most definitely interested in the European market! At least I am because it is my responsibility here at Aspen :-) . So, to clear up a few misconceptions about the new E5 that we are releasing and to let you know a few certification efforts we are working on. #1 is that the new E5 will most definitely be applicable and available in Europe. Once we get the FAA TSO and AMLSTC, we will be submitting to EASA for validation. There is a separate AMLSTC effort taking place direct with EASA to get an EASA AMLSTC for those aircraft that do not hold an FAA TC and, thus, not able to make it on the FAA AMLSTC and subsequently not on the EASA validated AMLSTC. Aircraft this will cover are those such as all Robin models, LET models, Alpha Aviation models, Grob models, Zlin, Diamond models without an FAA STC, etc. Below are some features of the E5 that you may want to consider:

- New technology high resolution display
- New processor with much more power, faster, etc
- New software which calculates attitude based on GPS rather than air data. This allows us to have a degraded attitude mode instead of the dreaded Red X’s
- New longer life internal backup battery
- Fully IFR certified
- Larger screen
- Larger font sizes
- Larger ADI presentation
- Larger Compass Card, the G5 compass card will fit inside the E5 card
- GPSS feature has a dedicated soft key for ease of activation
- Arch mode
- Interface input for 1 GPS and 1 NAV (ACU required when interfacing with analog units like a KX155, etc. and legacy A/Ps)
- Certified as primary attitude, so NO backup ADI required, customers can throw away old vacuum systems and ADIs losing weight and gaining horsepower
- EA100 will work with the E5, so customers that remove KI256s or old Century ADIs, can drive the attitude portion of the A/P with the digital ADAHRS from the E5
- Upgradable to a Pro or Pro Plus if the customer chooses later on
- Streamlined interface with the new Vizion A/P from TruTrak with a combo pricing of $9,995 for the two systems

[ post moved to correct thread ]

It would be interesting if a new “EFD1000” could run its AHRS temperature stabilisation at a lower temperature. The original product runs really hot (too hot to touch, sitting on an exhibition stand) and – I’ve been doing this since the 1970s – that isn’t ever going to produce really reliable electronics.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Hello Peter. Inside the can of the Aspen display contains a lot of electronics in a small area. Furthermore, there is a heater on the micro air data computer, as we have to heat it to 50C for it to calculate air data information correctly. To counter that there is a cooling fan and other means of heat dissipation. Furthermore, most good installers will add an additional muffin type cooling fan behind the instrument panel.

Also, the environment on exhibition is not ideal because the demo case is not as large as an actual instrument panel and, thus, there is typically not sufficient air flow.

We now have over 16,000 units in the field with very little issues related to heat.

@Cory_Relling_Aspen_Avionics, could you please provide some more details on the following?

- New software which calculates attitude based on GPS rather than air data. This allows us to have a degraded attitude mode instead of the dreaded Red X’s

Why do you need air data for attitude? Or did you mean altitude?

- New longer life internal backup battery

How long is the battery life?

- Certified as primary attitude, so NO backup ADI required, customers can throw away old vacuum systems and ADIs losing weight and gaining horsepower

What classical instruments have to be retained, if any? For G5 you need a turn coordinator, an altimeter, an ASI and a VSI.

- Upgradable to a Pro or Pro Plus if the customer chooses later on

What is the difference?

- Streamlined interface with the new Vizion A/P from TruTrak with a combo pricing of $9,995 for the two systems

Will it fly a coupled ILS approach? An LPV one?

Last Edited by Ultranomad at 04 Jul 13:25
LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

Ultranomad wrote:

– New software which calculates attitude based on GPS rather than air data. This allows us to have a degraded attitude mode instead of the dreaded Red X’s

Why do you need air data for attitude? Or did you mean altitude?

I’m sure he really meant attitude. The issue is that the silicone/electronic stuff for attitude is short-term stable, but not long-term. So it needs some other source of attitude data for continuous calibration. Just like what the pendulous vanes do in a mechanical AI. Many electronic AIs use air data for that calibration, I’ve heard things along the line of detecting when the plane is in straight flight (not climbing and not turning) and normalising / calibrating the attitude based on that. Some use GPS for that, and some (e.g. Garmin G500 and G1000) are able to use either GPS or air data, meaning they show attitude as long as any one of these two is available.

Having an AI that uses “only” air data means that you lose your AI when you have a pitot blockage.

ELLX
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Certified as primary attitude, so NO backup ADI required, customers can throw away old vacuum systems and ADIs losing weight and gaining horsepower

Unless your AP requires attitude, right ? FI, a KFC150 would still require an air driven AI ? Or does the EA100 solve this matter ?

EBST, Belgium

The EA100 emulates the pitch and roll pickoff coils of a KI256. Same with the GAD43 / G500 solution, or the G600.

How reliable is the EA100 these days? One UK avionics shop guy told me they had quite a number of them pack up, though this was several years ago.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top