Britain's Paul Bonhomme dominated the qualifying sessions of the Red Bull Air Race in San Diego on Saturday finishing with the fastest time of the day.

Paul Bonhomme got the 2008 Red Bull Air Race World Series off to a flying start today with a resounding victory against Hannes Arch of Austria in front of 400,000 spectators in Abu Dhabi.

Hot on the heels of certification and first customer shipments of Aspen Avionics’ Evolution Primary Flight Displays (PFDs), the company unveiled this week at the Sun ‘n Fun airshow in Lakeland, Florida, its upcoming line of Multi-Function Displays (MFDs).  Built on the same certified hardware platform as its PFDs, Aspen’s MFD line adds additional situational awareness tools, and increases safety by providing a fully redundant backup to the Primary Flight Display.  The company plans to ship its MFDs in the first quarter of 2009.

The EFD1000 MFD and EFD500 MFD, announced last summer at Oshkosh, combine high-resolution, sectional-style moving maps with dedicated and overlaid hazard awareness displays (weather, traffic and terrain).  The EFD1000 MFD adds a second, independent air data, attitude and heading reference system (ADAHRS), for full PFD redundancy at a remarkably affordable price.  These next members of the Evolution Flight Display system deliver on its promise of modularity, expandability and upgradeability.  Continuing the company’s philosophy of bringing the most advanced technologies to general aviation cockpits and budgets, the MFDs will sell for less than $8,000. 

“As we did with our PFD product development, we are actively seeking feedback and feature requests from pilots and dealers about what they would like to see in a Multi-Function Display,” said Aspen Avionics President & CEO John Uczekaj.  “Market demand for the Evolution PFDs has been strong, and we expect the same enthusiastic response to our MFD products,” said Uczekaj. 

This month’s Close Call takes us back to the early 1960’s into the northern Ontario bush. Our pilot was a geologist who would fly his Cessna 170 float plane into remote locations in the northern portions of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. One particular exploratory excursion had our pilot flying southeast from Timmins, Ontario to New Liskeard on the shore of Lake Timiskaming where the Wabi River enters the lake. A very familiar route. In preparation to land on the lake he overflew his landing zone to assess its suitability for landing. He observed high swells on the lake, the result of some recent winds. Our pilot determined that his intended landing spot was unsafe due to the swells so began his search for an alternate place to land.