Aerostar 601P/700P 1979

About Me

We’re based in Ithaca, NY (ITH)and have been flying since 1973. We’ve owned the Aerostar since 1996 flying it primarily in the east and south for business and pleasure. With a pressurized fast airplane like the Aerostar, having good information and situational awareness is very important.

My Panel (Before and After)

The Aerostar panel had traditional “steam gauges”...A/H and HSI. Both were getting old. We had upgraded to Garmin 530W/430W several years ago and decided the Aspen EFD 1000 Pro was the next step. We also replaced the transponder at the same time with a Garmin GTX 330.

My Aspen Experience

The Aspen EFD 1000 Pro has been all that was expected. The biggest changes so far are the tapes for airspeed and altitude and the GPSS. Less scanning is required with everything needed right on the Aspen. And the GPSS is amazing. It takes a 30 year old Century 41 Autopilot and makes it “brand new”. Flying complex clearances are really easy. Just program the route into the GNS 530W, put the A/P in heading mode and the Aspen in GPSS mode and it will follow every turn!

As for the rest of flying, we’re still getting used to the unit. For the most part, I turn-off a lot of the extra features: RMI pointers etc, and keep the map overlay only showing the current course with not much else. On longer trips, I see adding RMI pointers to help keep track of our progress. What I really like so far, is that it’s so easy to reduce the HSI information displayed to just what’s needed for any phase of flight.