I was going into withdrawal. It had been 20 days since I last flew. Luckily the prop came back and the shop bolted it on. The Primary flight display showed up as well and it had been taken to the MAX. I had an Aspen PFD 1000. It was designed over a decade ago. The screen was 16 color, the computer was a decade old. It was awesome but then they announced the Aspen MAX. The MAX took your current unit, threw out most of it and, replaced the electronics gave you a bunch of new features.
You kept the frame and knobs but all the electronics and screen were upgraded. It now has 16 million colors. That is 15,999,984 more. Not sure I can see all those shades though. It also runs about 5 times as fast. New features include voice call out, improved vertical navigation and additional backup, the unit will function even if your pitot or static system fails.
Well Thursday they put it in but upon testing the autopilot interface failed. They checked the install document and a footnote told them my config needed a software upgrade. That was done this morning. So the weather looked terrible today but I kept the faith. After work it was out to the airport and by 6 PM it had mostly cleared.
Off I went, the colors are nice and everything is a bit faster. I still need them to tweak the setup. I think it is about 1.5 degrees off perfect and the altitude call outs could be a touch louder. This is not unusual. I will do some more testing this weekend so I can tell them how to dial it in. There are user menus but this is in the installer menu. Once I have the correction should only take a minute to fix.
You kept the frame and knobs but all the electronics and screen were upgraded. It now has 16 million colors. That is 15,999,984 more. Not sure I can see all those shades though. It also runs about 5 times as fast. New features include voice call out, improved vertical navigation and additional backup, the unit will function even if your pitot or static system fails.
Well Thursday they put it in but upon testing the autopilot interface failed. They checked the install document and a footnote told them my config needed a software upgrade. That was done this morning. So the weather looked terrible today but I kept the faith. After work it was out to the airport and by 6 PM it had mostly cleared.
Off I went, the colors are nice and everything is a bit faster. I still need them to tweak the setup. I think it is about 1.5 degrees off perfect and the altitude call outs could be a touch louder. This is not unusual. I will do some more testing this weekend so I can tell them how to dial it in. There are user menus but this is in the installer menu. Once I have the correction should only take a minute to fix.
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