Aspen PFDs

[Hi LDL-Low HDL]

We are looking at installing Aspen PFDs in a fleet of piston aircraft.

Does anyone have experience, good or bad, of Aspen PFDs? There are rumblings of poor build quality.

[Hasherucf]

Heard some good reports . One old school pilot I know finds it disorientating when moving his gaze back onto the tape style displays , especially when doing low level ops. But that could be said of Aspens or Garmins

Hope your LDL and HDL improves Got good tips for that !

[Thailand Jason]

WE have them in our 172's.. I have logged a few hundred hours with them, I like them, they are fairly easy to use and if you both the PFD and the MFD your set. However last year one of them failed ( oldermodel) it was replaced quickly under warranty and now no worries!.. For the price, they are good.. :ok:

[ranfurly]

We have about 2000 hrs experience with Aspen in 3 different aircraft 210, p68 and 421 , and apart from a couple of glitches in the early days ,we are totally happy and would recommend them unreservedly. Good value and good support from the company.

[NIK320]

We have one aircraft with the aspen PFD and its awesome.
Links in with the garmin 430 so the track is displayed on the bottom nav section.

I'm not a big fan of the G1000 so I guess the more compact display on the aspen must be what I like about this one.

[Feather #3]

I use the Aspen in a mate's PA-39 with a Garmin 480. Love it!!:D

G'day ;)

[rgmgbg01]

Nice system but I have had multiple failures. Problems personally involved in include
1. Pitot blocked=system shut down (yeap everything - computer says does not compute and shuts down!)
2. AHRS fail = lost A/H and HSI/DG (and at a bad time!)
3. AHRS fail (different aircraft, same result)
4. AHRS fail (same aircraft as incident 2 but after unit replaced).

Something on ATSB involving ASPEN unit as well..

Make sure that back up A/H (mandatory equipment) is working!

[nomorecatering]

The Aspen is rubbish.

We had several twins fitted with the Aspen, all had multiple failures.

On top of that, the display is chunky and to my eye, quite unappealing. Like the Horizon and pitch lines have been drawn with a crayon rather than a fine pencil on the Garmin.

yeah the advertising looks great in the magazine but doesnt live up to the hype.

[Triple Captain]

A 'cheap' unit to have installed but:


Display very cluttered
Can no longer remove the speed / alt tapes to reduce clutter
With a pitot failure I have seen the unit indicate a pitch up and then complete fail
I have seen a unit indicate large ASI errors which get worse with increased airspeed
I think it was one of Jaba's crew from up north that had one regularly fail below 40deg south for no good reason (I think this has been fixed with software update)


The above was noticed on 8 - 10 flights in different aircraft.


On the plus side:

Does a great job at GPS roll steering and can be 'coupled' into a lot of old school autopilots
I'd trust them VFR no worries :)
Aspen do appear to have spares in the country which can be quickly swapped over. The Aspen has a configuration module which plugs into the back of the unit. Swapping the unit out is a 2 minute job.


Beats me how aspen have got TSO on these units. I am pretty sure some of the non TSO'd PFD's have much better up times.

[HarleyD]

I Like them.

lightweight, compact and more reliable than the vac gyros they replaced.

I wear bifocals and have no particular issue with reading the ribbons.

nice TAS and W/V indicator.

I prefer the single pfd install with remaining 4 primary instruments and elec sby ai in preference to the two unit install. have used both, single unit the go in my opinion.

integrates well with Garmin430.

good support both locally and from the factory.

G900 (aka Garmin 1000) not without its issues! also $$$

the G500 is another option to consider.

Honywell 840 takes up all the 6 pack space and has very similar info on display, just spread out more so the old farts (other old farts that is) can read it through their $5 reading glasses from chemist warehouse. I heard that it is to be discontinued, even before it is continued! good riddance.

HD