Hi Tim,
First the answers:
No, no and no
Followed by my thoughts:
My experience with the D180 was that it was a nice thing to have. Can't think of
anything bad about the display or all the functions it had. It broke down after
3 hours of test flights, and lucky enough while on the ground. The repair
and the transport took 3 weeks and 120 for my part of the transport. Later i
became a Dynon betatester, ands i really appreciate the thouroughness of their
testing.
You have to realise though, that one disadvantage of such a system is to have
all
eggs in one basket. At one time, accidently ending up in cloud between
mountains,
it raised my heartbeat thinking of that.
Adding an autopilot worsens the odds.
The Dynon autopilot does not have any trim indication. You could be flying
severely
out of trim without noticing before you or the autopilot switches itself
off. The Europa has a very powerfull trim and the combination is an accident
in the making. While it is an experimental airplane, making the experimental
part
as small as possible does never hurt. Still, yes i would install the Dynon
autopilot, but would wait a couple of years before i would. I would first have
a backup for at least the horizon.
Regards,
Jos Okhuijsen
Visit - www.EuropaOwners.org
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