Cessna 177 Cardinal RG

About Me

I have over 2000 hours of recreational and search and rescue flying. I wanted an aircraft I wanted to fly and would be proud to own. I chose the Cardinal for it’s family friendly features and installed an avionics package that would have excellent day/night IFR/VFR features. I included a GPS navigation system, legacy RNAV and ADF and traffic, with a Garmin 496 for topographical mapping and easy VFR use with XM weather information. The Aspen PFD1000PRO was chosen to integrate with the GNS 430 and the STEC30 autopilot. The built in GPS Steering that comes with the Aspen equipment adds to the utility of the panel. The aircraft is very nice to fly.

My Panel (Before and After)

The original panel was essentially a VFR panel with an Apollo GPS and two King KX155 tranceivers. One of them had a glide slope. The STEC 30/ALT did come with the aircraft, so I did not need to add that.

I had my avionics shop install a new panel with a Garmin GNS430 as the heart of the panel. A Garmin GMX200 MFD was added to display TAS610 traffic and IFR/VFR mapping to give a good rendition of the local airspace. I waited for Aspen to produce the PFD1000PRO and added it to the panel to add huge display and navigational control capability to the panel. The GPSS autopilot feature was unexpected, but very well received! I kept the Aspen uncluttered without traffic or weather and I am really looking forward to adding synthetic vision. There are several items I would like to install, including another EFD1000 MFD, but finances are limited and I may not be able to do much more to the panel. I added a legacy RNAV and ADF system as a terrestrial backup to the satellite navigation equipment. At the time of installation, the ADF did not interface to the Aspen. It may in the future and I may add it to the Aspen later as another terrestrial sensor.

My Aspen Experience

The Aspen indicator is a little jewel in the centre of my scan. The air data information, winds aloft are very informative and make a difficult ILS much easier. The track diamond is another feature that helps make precision flying that much more achievable. Holding altitude with precision is much easier with the trend information available with version 2 software. All in all, I am very satisfied with my aircraft and its panel.