Design Improvements for the Zenith 601 HDS: Instrument Panel

Instrument Panel

The VFR instrument panel has Bendix King GPS/Com KLX 135A, transponder, two electric gyros (Attitude, DG), Digitrak autopilot by TruTrak, and Garmin GPSMAP 195 mounted forward of center stick.

The two GPS units have proved to be important since either unit has run at times into an unrecoverable software error, resulting in grossly misleading navigation information. Since the units are from different manufacturers, they have never run into a software error simultaneously. Thus, such problems can be detected by cross checking. Recovery is by turning the unit with the software error off and then back on.



The Digitrak autopilot has proved to be most useful.



The operation of the autopilot requires some care, as we discovered during early flights; see Points for Pilots: Performance of Digitrak Autopilot by TruTrak.