You are not "forced" to use our autopilot. You can use a TruTrak or a Trio in a plane with a Dynon system. The software release that is coming out this month even adds standard NMEA out and enough system information that a AP vendor can follow our bugs if desired. It's just that using our AP saves you a huge amount of money.
If you want redundancy, a dual screen SkyView with dual ADAHRS has no single point of failure that will cause the attitude or AP to stop working, and if you want totally independent systems, you can use a Dynon D10A as a backup EFIS and your main AP, for less than any other AP out there. We give you a lot of options, and we keep adding more.
It is my understanding that the SV-ARInC-429 module won't output labels that can drive a GPS steering autopilot. This means that you can't fly an approach from a 430W on an external autopilot without making the 430W the direct source for the autopilot and cutting the skyview out of the system.
Sure, adding NMEA sentences to skyview will allow skyview's heading bug to command an external autopilot, but my understanding is that it won't do anything for vertical navigation, and if your flying a track, it will overshoot each leg because the NMEA heading suddenly changes the heading to the new leg when the old leg is complete.
At the end of the day, the skyview simply won't integrate with an external autopilot and a 430W and work like the AFS or GRT will.
If you want the dynon autopilot then the functionality is the same, but if you don't, then I would skip the dynon for IFR work.
Before I get flamed, please understand that I'm posting comments from research I did several months ago, that I believe is still valid today. The intent is to help out the original poster with the difficult decision of which panel to buy, not get people upset.
Also, keep in mind that I'm building a bearhawk, not an RV (I live in Alaska for pete's sake) and I have reason to believe that the TT would fly the airplane much better because their auto pilot is much more mature.
At the end of the day, my arguments are based on my PERCEIVED maturity of each system. Take them with a grain of salt:
1. Skyview simply isn't mature from the perspective of integration since it doesn't yet output gps steering on ARINC-429.
2. The Skyview autopilot hasn't flow as many types as the TT autopilot.
3. The Skyview and MGL flying a complete IFR approach from a 430W is relatively new.
4. The Skyview and MGL shipped initially with significant IFR features missing then they added them later. The AFS, GRT, and Garmin boxes did 430W and AP integration for IFR work from day one.
These are the reasons I would stick to AFS, GRT, and Garmin for IFR. My basis for preferring the AFS and Garmin over the GRT is because I think the AHRS on these boxes is better, and because I don't like how the GRT uses a standard x86 processor. I think that a low power arm/mips based processor is much better suited for this type of embedded application.
Disclaimer, I own an AFS box, and I really like how it only draws a single amp all up and running (because it has an LED backlit display which is NICE) and I like that it runs nice and cool. The unit is only 2-3*F above ambient and doesn't even need it's fan to run.
schu
