DFC90 Attitude-Based Digital Autopilot

Avidyne’s DFC90 Attitude-Based Digital Autopilot enhances precision of flight and improves safety for your Entegra-equipped Cirrus.

 

The DFC90 adds the precision of an attitude-based flight control system and Avidyne’s innovative, safety-enhancing Envelope Protection capability.

The DFC90 has all the standard vertical and lateral modes of operation of a turbine-class autopilot system, including Flight Director (FD), Altitude Hold (ALT), Airspeed Hold (IAS), Vertical Speed Hold (VS), Heading (HDG), and Navigation (NAV, APPR, LOC/GS, GPSS). Customers upgrading from the STEC 55X will notice several major performance and feature improvements including:

1. Greatly improved stability due to the use of attitude data to control the autopilot inner control loops. This is particularly evident and important when tracking an ILS to minimums in windy conditions.
2. Avidyne Flight Envelope Protection prevents autopilot-induced stalls and overspeeds, which have previously been a major contributing factor in GA accidents. This includes having the autopilot avoid exceeding the flight envelope while providing visual and aural warnings to the pilot.
3. The new Indicated Airspeed Hold (IAS) vertical mode includes a dedicated Airspeed knob and a new airspeed bug on the PFD.
4. A“Straight & Level” button which overrides all autopilot modes and levels the aircraft in both pitch and roll from a wide range of capture attitudes for an added measure of safety.
5. The flight director capability of the DFC90 is vastly improved and greatly improves the ability to hand-fly approaches.
   

There are many other improvements, such as a dedicated Vertical Speed knob, pitch hold mode, wide autopilot engagement, additional annunciations in PFD 8.0, a dedicated GPSS button, automatic Back Course Approach selection, multiple color annunciations to indicate armed and active states, intercept mode annunciations, and Avidyne’s hallmark ease of use.

 

Envelope Protection

For envelope protection, available lift and speed margin are calculated constantly in the background whenever any mode, including Flight Director modes, are in operation. As the aircraft approaches stall, the autopilot acts unobtrusively to gradually reduce maximum bank and Vertical Speed just enough to keep the wing flying, while annunciating the condition to the pilot. As a result, departure from controlled flight is prevented with the least obtrusive impact on achieving mission level objectives like navigation, climb or approach. Overspeed is handled similarly, with anticipation and minimal but effective inputs. In Flight Director modes, all these actions appear as guidance cues with corrections blended into the "V-bar" commands.

Specifications

Dimensions
• Width: 6.25" (159mm)
• Height: 1.5" (38mm)
• Depth: 10.6" (279mm)

Weight
• 2.02 lbs (0.92 kg)

Avidyne DFC90

OverviewDFC90 BrochureDFC90 Promotional PricingDFC90 In the NewsDFC90 Product Review (PDF)DFC90/DFC100 FAQs (PDF)DFC90 Webinar (PDF)Retail Price List (PDF)

 

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