I just did an IR renewal using an aircraft equipped with the Avidyne IFD540 – having always used Garmin stuff up to now I was pleasantly surprised how capable it and good it was in many ways
Seems strange and illogical that the retrofit requires cutting a new panel – they know the market they are going after, why did they just not design drop in replacements?, the IFD’s drop in to replace the original Garmins – but the displays are going to require a huge amount of invasive surgery to install
It’s not to replace the Garmins. It is to replace the Avidyne Entegra.
I was told by an SR22 salesman about 10 years ago that 99% of SR22s then being sold were G1000, and this was when Avidyne was still an option. So there can’t be that many left with the original Avidyne, no?
OTOH somebody with a G1000 has absolutely nowhere else to go so any product replacing that would be big news 
Every G2 Cirrus has an Entegra suite, which are quite a lot of aircraft (except the R9 upgrades). And from a quick read through the sales brochure it looks like the new Avidyne Vantage screens will work only with the DFC90 autopilot (for now…). What is true is that almost every G2 Cirrus has the GNS430 combo.
Not the initial target market, but there is an installed base and potential market outside Cirrus as well.
There’s also the G500Txi option.
