Matt Thurber, editor-in-chief at AIN Media Group, has been flying since 1975 and writing about aviation since 1978 and now has the best job in the world, running editorial operations for Aviation International News, Business Jet Traveler, and FutureFlight.aero. In addition to working as an A&amp;P mechanic on everything from Piper Cubs to turboprops, Matt taught flying at his father’s flight school in Plymouth, Mass., in the early 1980s, flew for an aircraft owner/pilot, and for two summer seasons hunted swordfish near the George’s Banks off the East Coast from a Piper Super Cub. An ATP certificated fixed-wing pilot and CFII and commercial helicopter pilot, Matt is type-rated in the Citation 500 and Gulfstream V/550. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Matt and his team cover the entire aviation scene including business aircraft, helicopters, avionics, safety, manufacturing, charter, fractionals, technology, air transport, advanced air mobility, defense, and other subjects of interest to AIN, BJT, and FutureFlight readers.

Editor-in-Chief

Matt Thurber

Sandel has selected Stevens Aviation as an exclusive dealership in the central and eastern U.S. for its Avilon integrated flight deck upgrade for King Airs. <a href="http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2015-11-16/sandel-flies-king-air-avionics-retrofit-market">Sandel unveiled the Avilon system</a> at last November’s NBAA convention.

 


Equipped with full NextGen-compliant avionics, Avilon can be installed in as few as five days. The suite comes as a fully assembled integrated system with a fly-away price of $175,000 installed. The first Avilon installations will be available for 200-series King Airs in June, and Sandel plans to offer the upgrade for all King Airs and the Beech 1900.

 


What makes Avilon different, besides its low price and simple installation, is the pilot interface, which provides clearly depicted path-based guidance in both the vertical and lateral axes. Avilon combines touchscreens with a minimal number of knobs and switches. Visual displays clearly depict the state of the airplane on “tiles” that add up to a richly informative “main primary” display in front of each pilot. Each main primary is split into four of these tiles, like mini-displays adding up to a larger 12-inch display. At the top center of the panel sits the Path Guidance panel, consisting of two high-resolution mini-displays each about the size of a smartphone, one for lateral path and one for vertical path information.

 


Avilon comes with a high-performance flight director/autopilot and flight management computer. Among the NextGen features are performance-based navigation capability as accurate as RNP 0.3 and ADS-B-compliant transponder.

 


For the King Air, Avilon comes as a single preassembled unit that plugs into the airplane’s existing electrical connectors. The King Air’s existing crew-alerting system panel stays in place. Everything else is replaced, including all radios and autopilot components except servos. The existing radar and radar altimeter are retained. Weight savings should be between 100 and 150 pounds.

 


“This changes everything as it gives the customer a fully replaceable, high-performance avionics system that meets all 2020 NextGen regulations, installs in as little as five days and all for a price many more can afford,” said Stevens Aviation sales manager Phil Stearns.

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