Aspen Wish List - EA100 S-tec, &

[testwest]

Hopefully someone at Aspen takes note of this!

When pondering an autopilot upgrade for our M20J, there are a few "good" choices, but not very many "great" choices.....but there is a cool "what if" scenario....

What if an Aspen PFD and the EA100 autopilot emulator could talk directly to S-tec servos? The servo gains are already known for the M20, what would be needed would be the control interface for the AP (to select ALT HOLD or ATT, or Heading/Track etc.) Seems to me all this would be do-able inside the current Aspen architecture. Aspen already drives a very smart heading bug for GPSS, and the EA100 replaces the mechanical gyro, it does not seem to be much of a stretch to output track info....so your S-tec (or Century, or King) servos would now talk directly to a very smart ATTITUDE-based source!

On a different but related tack, what if there was a "Vertical GPSS"?? The scenario is the same as for GPSS with the Aspen now...just engage the AP in Heading mode and the Aspen drives the heading bug intelligently thru your procedure turn or curved segment (the so called RF or radius to a fix leg) and so on....so WHAT IF we could engage the pitch attiude in a "smart attitude" mode??

It would be just like the GPSS now, except in the pitch axis!! The AP is just in its plain dumb attitude mode, but the Aspen does the smart attitude computations, so you could do things like vertical speed hold/automatic altitude capture, or even constant speed climbs or descents (Douglas drivers call it speed-on-pitch, and Boeing drivers call it level change).

Completely possible in my view....what I don't know is what other Mooniacs would think of this, or consider it in an upgrade.....any discussion?

 

[KSMooniac]

I love the way you're thinking!  There is a huge gaping hole in the aftermarket autopilot market, and if the Aspen architecture could support such an idea with some more software work then I think there is very huge potential.

[testwest]

Thanks!

I do realize there is an autopilot computer with all of the gain schedules and so on to drive the servos, but it sure seems to me if S-tec can put the AP computer AND a big ol gyro in a long-ish turn coordinator case, then Aspen could fit the AP computer guts into the EA100 box and talk direct to the servos.

The integration issue is mounting the various servos to the airframe and the gains used on those servos. That has already been done with the legacy AP manufacturers, it does seem like not such a difficult thing to hook up a smarter brain.

Of course the first market served would be Bonanza and Baron drivers, but one can hope M20s make the short list, whenever that happens.

The other cool thing Aspen could do is talk to every JPI engine sensor out there. Not to wish for too much~!

[KSMooniac]

I think it makes a lot of sense to work towards the autopilot market since it is way under-served IMO currently...and I wouldn't concede that the Beeches go first either!  Peter Lyons has a K so they should have access to work on development with that airframe without having to get something off the street.  (They may already have other planes too...I have no idea)

Taking the idea a bit further, I wonder if there are any better "modern" servos compared to the ones that comprise the legacy King, Century and STEC systems.  Perhaps TruTrak is using something that is lighter/cheaper/better?  Perhaps Aspen could go whole-hog and develop an optional complete A/P system instead of trying to interface with many different varieties of existing systems.

I think we have a healthy engine monitor market currently and don't see a need for them to get into that arena.

[Parker_Woodruff]

I agree.  I really would love to see an integrated autopilot for the glass panel retrofit systems.  Especially since autopilots like the Century 2000 won't mix with the G-500 (as of last time I called them).

In fact, I'd like to see all the manufacturers come out with more "plug and play" type flight hardware.  Is it really necessary at this day and age to have a million pin-outs and wiring harnesses?  Maybe I'm just too used to computers and USB & Ethernet cables...

Maybe something with Garmin and their announcement.

[mikefox]

I'm not sure what you mean by "mix", but we have a Century 2000 with a G-500.  But we have retained the old AI Gyro as backup and to drive the pitch and roll input to the autopilot computer.  G500 provides heading and nav info to the computer.  GPSS works great!

[John Pleisse]

Fact is, no autopilots work with these systems, unless you either buy their DA converters, reatin your Stec turn coordinator or you buy the wildly expensive Garmin autopilot. I have an Stec, I am buying a new PFD and no matter which I buy, I'll have to reatin my turn coordinator (small price to pay). These legacy autopilot's STCs only accounted for mechanical instrument standards and unless somebody pays them big money or buys them out, hunker down....their STC's will not change. Rewriting an STC is really what it comes down to and they won't do it. Example? Cobham bought out STEC, abolished their old autopilot (Chelton) and their revolutionary PFD (Chelton) and to this day can't get all three on the same page.  ( I know I should change my screen name to "Avionics Junkie")

[KSMooniac]

Cobham has made some really bad decisions and are well on their way to destroying what used to be good businesses, unfortunatley.  TruTrak makes a great product at a great price, but has no intentions whatsoever of pursuing the certified market because they're doing quite well as experimental only.  I think they would be an instant success if they wanted to enter the certified world, or perhaps another company would be interested in doing so.  Norman's suggestion for Aspen would be a perfect fit IMO...perhaps we'll get a big announcement from them this year now that they have all 3 screens out in the market as well as the autopilot adapter for the legacy systems.  Surely their engineers aren't twiddling their thumbs right now, right?  

[Parker_Woodruff]

Quote: mikefox

I'm not sure what you mean by "mix", but we have a Century 2000 with a G-500.  But we have retained the old AI Gyro as backup and to drive the pitch and roll input to the autopilot computer.  G500 provides heading and nav info to the computer.  GPSS works great!

[John Pleisse]

Yes it's resolved Parker.....for about 3 grand extra(Garmin or Aspen). KS-You're dead-on re Tru-Trak, but I have to suggest....Garmin has and autopilot and Aspen won't be served by anything unless they make an autopiot of their own....clean sheet.

[KSMooniac]

Garmin (and Avidyne) both have fully digital autopilots but as far as I know they're not for retrofit, although the Avidyne product can be installed/retrofitted into Cirrus aircraft with the Avidyne system.  Perhaps adding an A/P to the G500/600 system is planned for Garmin, but I don't know.  Compared to the new Cobham prices for the STEC products, there is a lot of room in the market for some competition.  It would be wonderful to have 2-4 companies in the retrofit PFD market with add-ons like MFDs, Autopilots, etc. that can play nicely together.

[testwest]

Aspen has gone "afield", as it were, to smaller companies in the past, their XM weather receiver is actually a lower-cost adaptation of the box made by Heads Up Technologies ( http://www.heads-up.com/xmwx_mfd.html ) .

I would think there could be a cost savings if the form/fit/function of any servos used for an AP application would conform to a currently approved installation. Assuming they chose an existing servo manufacturer that provided the best *value* (performance per dollar), they could re-brand those servos to the Aspen name just like they did with the XM WX box.

Wishful thinking, maybe.

Aspen is planning to tackle the Century legacy APs next (AFAIK) with their DA converter, so the PFD would talk to the Century AP computer and servos. They have already done so for the King attitude gyros....

 

[FlyDave]

Question for those of you that fly behind an Aspen or G500/600: Do you find it easier, the same or harder to manipulate the control buttons/knobs/joysticks when they're in the panel in front of you as opposed to the center stack?

[danb35]

Quote: testwest

Aspen is planning to tackle the Century legacy APs next (AFAIK) with their DA converter, so the PFD would talk to the Century AP computer and servos. They have already done so for the King attitude gyros....

[John Pleisse]

Altitude pre-select would be awesome.............problem is, they'll be software unlocks they'll charge thousands for each. But then again it'll be cheap, compared to a $12k altimeter and a $3k remote innunciator panel..............it'll be a bargin.

[testwest]

Aspen was listening....i think!

It appears the Aspen-Avidyne news announcement from AEA regarding more applications for the Avidyne DFC90 autopilot was just what Scott S and I were hoping for. The architecture is Aspen for the AHRS and annunciation and the DFC90 for the autopilot, talking to (probably) S-tec servos....

Of course for our retrofit we will retain the Brittain air lines, they are a nice conduit to fish the wires to the new servos.

That straight and level button is pretty cool too.