IFD Software Release 10.2.0.0

New Features:

1.   1. 1. Added support for multiple options on the IFD-series to include:

a.       WiFi/Bluetooth

b.      FLTA and 500’ Callouts

c.       TAWS

d.      On-board Digital Radar

e.      Video Input/Display

f.        Synthetic Vision

g.       16W VHF Comm Transmit Power

h.      SAR/Special Use

i.         Capstone compliant ADS-B Receivers

2.   .   2. Added support for European VFR Visual Approach, Landing and Area Charts – this is a new chart option in the chart list for those customers who have elected to add that capability to their Jepp subscription.

3.       3. Added support for Digital Radar – a new optional RADAR tab has been added to the MAP page and weather radar overlays are supported on the moving map.

4.       4. Added support for TIS traffic display – adds TIS track lines and TIS related “Traffic Not Available” CAS messages

5.       5. Added support for GDL-88 – added ability to communicate with, and display data from, Garmin GDL-88 devices

6.       6. Added support for GTX-330ES – Adds ability to communicate with, and send ADS-B compliant position data to the GTX-330ES

7.      7.  Added support for Video input and display – a new optional VIDEO tab has been added to the MAP page which displays input from any RS-170 format camera.  The display can support full-color video input and IR camera input and is pinch zoom-able and pan-able.

8.      8.  Added support for TAWS – adds the rest of the TAWS capability to include Premature Descent Alert, Excessive Sink Rate, Negative Climb Rate after Takeoff or Go-Around, TAWS Self Test and associated aurals.   It is likely the TSO approval will be a follow-on approval after 10.2.0.0 release.

9.       9.  Added Synthetic Vision to all IFDs – a new optional SVS tab has been added to the MAP page which displays an “exocentric” view of your airplane against 3D terrain and obstacles along with flight plan information.

10. 10.  Adds support for Search and Rescue and Special Use patterns – provides an option for circular orbits around a point.

11. 11.  Added a new “Direct Distance to Active Waypoint” datablock – this datablock provides a constant snap vector including direct distance to the active waypoint.  This does NOT add a buttonhook type of turn toward the waypoint if not already facing it.

12  12. Added a new “Active Waypoint Direct Info” datablock – Adds a new datablock which displays bearing, distance, time to go to active waypoint using a straight line assumption.

13.  13. Added a new “Designated Waypoint Info” datablock – this is my personal favorite and allows you to designate any waypoint in the system (not just in the flight plan) to be an anchor point and provides bearing, radial, distance, time-to-go data elements.  To change the designated waypoint, just touch on the datablock which pops up a virtual keyboard to type in a new waypoint.  The waypoint selected will survive across power cycles.

14. 14.  Adds Demo mode – this feature adds a means in maintenance mode to put the IFD into Demo mode.  Once in demo mode, a special splash screen pops up at each power up and if you accept it, it puts the IFD into demo mode.  The IFD will “fly” the flight plan entered including any altitude constraints.  This mode is entered if a properly configured USB fob is inserted into the USB port prior to power up.  Great for dealers and even useful for in-airplane ground training.

15. 15.  Added WX-500 Self Test capability – adds a new WX500 self test page to Maintenance mode for debug and troubleshooting purposes

16. 16.  IFD550 Support – Release 10.2.0.0 software fully supports the new IFD550 product which will be released at the same time.  The IFD550 contains an internal Attitude Reference System (a set of TSO’d gyros and accels) that computes and displays a TSO’d attitude indication.  Both Synthetic Vision and a traditional blue/brown ADI depictions are available.  The Synthetic Vision view is an “egocentric” or out-the-window view with 3D traffic, 3D terrain, 3D obstacles, 3D flight plan depiction, Total Velocity Vector (TVV)/Flight Path Marker (FPM) depiction, highlighted airfields and runways, and vertical/lateral deviation indicators.

17. 17.  IFD545 Support – Release 10.2.0.0 software fully supports the new IFD545 product which is the IFD550 without the VHF com/nav capability.

18. 18.  IFD510 Support – Release 10.2.0.0 software fully supports the new IFD510 product which is the IFD540 without the VHF com/nav capability.

19. 19.  IFD410 Support – Release 10.2.0.0 software fully supports the new IFD410 product which is the IFD440 without the VHF com/nav capability.

20. 20.  Adds transponder test capability – a new transponder test page/mode has been added to maintenance mode that tests the transponder output signals and gives great feedback to the installer/tester/troubleshooter.

21. 21.  Adds a port monitor capability – a new page has been added to maintenance mode that allows an installer/troubleshooter to monitor all the traffic on the various data com ports of the IFD.

22. 22.  Adds a Terrain database version ID to the SYS page – just like with Nav, Obstacle and Chart data, we are now displaying the version number/date of the on-board terrain database.

23. 23.  Displays Navaids on FMS INFO tab – adds a new sub-tab to the FMS INFO tab that shows nearby navaids

24.  24. Adds new User ID datablock – this new datablock identifies the current User Profile in use. Especially useful in those multiple owner airplanes or the pilots who want to set up profiles for various phases of flight.

25.  25. Adds Transition Level/Altitude Alert – made additions to the FMS Setup page to allow designation of local area transition level/altitude and has associated CAS messages with them as the transition level/altitude is approached.

26.  26. Adds Sidetone Adjust capability – added a new row on the Volume page to provide a means to adjust the VHF transmission side tone level.

27.  27. Adds other new maintenance mode selections and pages – added several new selection types for RS-232 devices, radar calibration page, stormscope test page, IFD550 attitude sensor calibration page, and others

Improvements:

28.  28  Improved WiFi capability – adds two-way WiFi so data (e.g. flight plans) can be sent from an external device/application to the IFD and added more data in the WiFi stream from the IFD to include ADS-B weather, ADS-B traffic, attitude data from the IFD550/545, user waypoints, stored routes, etc).  This also includes support for the new free IFD100 iPad app which is a fully interactive version of the IFD running on an iPad.  When connected via WiFi to the panel mount IFD, virtually all inputs made on one IFD are reflected on the other.  It's WAY COOL!

29. 29.  Adds 16W VHF Transmit power capability to the IFD 4-series – IFD4-series now has the option for 16W transmit power. Fielded IFD440s can be upgraded from 10W to 16W if desired.

30.  30.  Navigation Database upload speeds dramatically increased – Nav database upload times have been dramatically reduced.  For example, 15MB worldwide nav data used to take 7 minutes to upload and now takes 40 seconds.

31. 31.  Full Bluetooth Keyboard mapping – adds all missing mapping to the Bluetooth keyboards.

32. 32.  Additional ADS-B weather products – adds Winds Aloft, Temps Aloft, and TFRs from the MLB100 datastream for display on the IFD

33. 33.  Ability to turn off individual GPS satellite vehicles – individual satellite vehicle numbers can be manually excluded from the GPS solution in maintenance mode.  This should be especially helpful in the southern hemisphere (e.g. Australia and New Zealand) where WAAS and MSAS satellites can be viewed but may be troublesome.

34. 34.  Enhanced GPS signal lock robustness – a number of additional enhancements were made to the GPS lock algorithms.

35. 35.  Allow multiple outputs of the same data stream – previously, you could only have one instance of a RS-232 data type in Maintenance Mode and now you can have up to 6 instances of the same type.  For example, you can now set “Aviation” on all six serial ports if you want.

36. 36.  Configuration Save Improvements – this should help out those customers who use the Windows simulator and configure the IFD as they want and try to save those settings to a USB fob for importing into an actual IFD.  Those settings were not being fully implemented on the actual IFD until now.

37. 37.  Add aural alert to ADS-B traffic TAs – An aural “bing” now accompanies ADS-B sourced traffic TAs.

38. 38.  Improved VOR nav sensitivity – the overall VOR sensitivity was improved which greatly improves Morse Code decode times and accuracy.

39. 39.  Improved enroute transitions - When inserting a SID into the flight plan, the system will generally present only a dropdown containing enroute transitions. When the user selects the transition, a SID is inserted with a runway transition corresponding to the selected runway. However, if there is no selected runway, then no runway transition is inserted. This has led to some users wondering why their SID is "missing legs".  That has been addressed in 10.2.

40. 40.  Added WiFi and Bluetooth logo icons to the top datablock strip – the added logos will be a clear indication which capability has been enabled on that IFD

41. 41.  Moved the WiFi/BT accept dialog box up to the startup sequence – moves that dialog box up to the startup sequence if the IFD has WiFi or Bluetooth enabled and at least one of them configured in User Options to be On.

42. 42.  Depicted GPS signal strength – improves the visual depiction of GPS satellite signal-to-noise ratio bars on the GPS status page

43. 43.  Enhanced Guard Freq swapping behavior – When pressing and holding the Swap key to push 121.5 into the active com freq, the system will now automatically push the previous active freq into the standby slot.

44. 44.  VLOC Yellow on ILS Approach – there were some ILS approaches that were coded differently in the nav database and did not toggle the VLOC nav source indicator to green when they should have.  That has been rectified in this release.

45. 45.  Offer more possibilities when entering a waypoint – instead of limiting dropdown waypoint choices to previously determined most logical choices, all choices with the identifier are now possible.

46. 46.  Improved thumbnail dwell time - adds a dwell time requirement to effect change on the traffic and transponder thumbnails.  This fixes an issue where scrolling the datablocks column could adversely/unintentionally change the traffic or transponder state

47. 47.  Improved Published Holds – there were some subtle uses of published holds that we did not know about operationally.  This change allows selection of the type of hold to be used when there are multiple published holds on the same database waypoint.

48. 48.  Runway length in meters - When meters selected as units in User Options distance units field, the runway length information on the INFO tab will be displayed in meters. Also affects map pop up info boxes and Map Setup page filtering by runway length.

49. 49.  ADS-B traffic symbols – adds the directional indication symbol to ADS-B sourced traffic blips

50. 50.  Cyclic scroll on waypoint lat/lon entry - When entering in lat lon coordinates, instead of preventing a rollover from 0 to 9 as pre-10.2 behaved, now you can twist the knob to go around the horn.

51. 51.  Timer label changes – a few cosmetic changes to titles of timers.  “Departure Timer” is now “Event Times” and start options have been wordsmithed.

52. 52.  Title change of User ID datablock – changes the title of the datablock from “User ID” to “User Profile”.

53.  53. Jet/Victor Airways visibility on map – changed the altitudes at which Jet Airways and Victor Airways are suppressed from view on the map. 

54. 54.  Removed floating “TRK” - In pre-10.2 systems, if you turned off the digital heading box on the Map, we left a floating “TRK” indication.  That is now removed if digital heading/track is removed too.

55. 55.   Map tab hiding info on Charts page – moves the page alignment as required so that the MAP page tabs do not obscure Chart data.

56. 56.  Enhanced virtual keyboard ops during edits - removes a behavior where the virtual keyboard would be removed if you used the space key during edits to the User Profile name.

57. 57.  Improved cursor behavior on Chart list page – prevents the cursor from moving beyond your field of view (below the visible page) when on the Chart list page.

58. 58.  Removes invalid temps from Mx Mode display page – removes some unused or invalid temps on the I/O card sub-page in Mx mode.

59.  59. Improved GPS status flagging – no longer flags GPS position as “bad” when the UTC Invalid flag is set.

60. 60.  Changed default state of maintenance mode updates page - changes the default of all FOB files being selected for upload to no files selected in an attempt to reduce unintended SW/database or updates loading.

61. 61.  KFC225 Nav Arming in Dual IFDs – improves the clarity of which IFD arms the autopilot NAV mode in dual IFD-KFC225 equipped aircraft.

Issues Remedied

62. 62.   Restore missing datablock in top datablock strip – restores the missing Crosstrack Deviation datablock option to the top datablock strip after it had been inadvertently removed a few releases ago.

63. 63.  Fixes Datalink no coverage cross hatching indications – we had some cases where big/gigantic no-coverage cross hatching indications from ADS-B weather were displayed.

64. 64.  Fixed times in G500 and GMX200 - There were some conditions where the times displayed on the G500 and GMX200 were off by an hour due to a bug in our interpretation of the data messages.  That’s now resolved.

65. 65.   Fixed GMX200 Reboot issue – remedied an issue that would cause the GMX200 to reboot after its disclaimer page was acknowledged.

66. 66.  Fixed improper use of pressure altitude on GPS Status Page – eliminates the use of pressure altitude on the GPS Status page for the altitude field and in the Aviation 232 output stream.  It’s GPS Altitude or nothing now.

67.  67. G500 ILS Autoslew course issued resolved – remedied an issue in which the ILS course was not always properly autoslewing in a G500/600.

68. 68.  Altitude Constraint Removal issue resolved – remedied an issue in which the inserted altitude constraint would get removed when inserting an airway after a leg.

69.  69. Remedied and issue in the way arc legs were drawn on Garmin displays - resolved the issue where on MX20/GMX200/G500, Arc legs are not able to be drawn greater than 255 degrees. Most DME Arcs are significantly less than that but it has been found that the Nav database does contain some arcs that are greater than 255 degrees (ex. SASJ OSEBO 4A Departure - GESPA transition)

70.  70. VR leg altitude constraint radial display fix – remedied an issue where the radial on an altitude constraint VR leg would not display 3 digits if less than 100 degrees.

71. 71.  Fixed Next Leg CAS issue – the “Next Leg” CAS message was supposed to be a Delete on Ack message but that was not implemented correctly in Release 10.1.1.0.

72. 72.   Remedied an issue in datablock location display – remedied an issue that caused discrete jumping of display location in datablocks when using User IDs 2-5.

73. 73.   Fixed inappropriate dismissal of virtual keyboard – some of the AUX – Setup pages would get keyboards in places and times that they shouldn’t and this is now fixed.

74. 74.  Fixed AM/PM error in ETA calculation –remedied an issue that typically produced an error in ETA time label (AM was PM and PM was AM).