The Dynon SkyView HDX, the Experimental Avionics Company That Got FAA Approval for Certified Aircraft, and the Price War That Changed the Glass Panel Market Forever

In 2018, Dynon Avionics - a company built on experimental and light sport avionics - received FAA Supplemental Type Certificate approval to install its SkyView HDX system in some of the most common certified single-engine aircraft in the country. The result was a glass cockpit panel upgrade priced under $25,000 for a Cessna 172 or Piper Cherokee, compared to the $50,000–$65,000 a full Garmin G1000 suite had required. That price compression reshaped what individual owners and flight schools could realistically afford.

Why the Garmin G1000 Dominated - and What It Cost

When Garmin launched the G1000 in 2003, it transformed the certified aircraft cockpit. A fully integrated primary flight display, multi-function display, nav-com radios, and engine monitoring in a single glass panel was genuinely revolutionary. For flight schools, it changed what buyers expected when they walked onto a ramp.

The price reflected that position. A full G1000 installation in a Cessna 172, including the GFC 700 autopilot and labor, ran $35,000–$50,000. For a flight school spreading that cost across a fleet, the math was survivable. For an individual owner of a Cherokee or Cardinal, it was a gut punch. Most looked at their round gauges and concluded glass was not in their budget.

How Dynon Built Its Way to the Certified Market

Dynon Avionics was based in Woodinville, Washington, building glass cockpit systems for experimental and light sport aircraft. The experimental category doesn’t require FAA avionics certification if you built the aircraft or are the registered owner, so Dynon could iterate aggressively. Their SkyView system offered synthetic vision, moving map displays, engine monitoring, and autopilot integration - capabilities rivaling certified systems at a fraction of the cost.

Homebuilders installing SkyView in their Van’s RVs, Sonexes, and Glasairs talked about it at AirVenture and across builder forums. Certified aircraft owners watched with envy. The barrier was FAA certification.

What FAA Certification Actually Requires

Selling avionics for certified aircraft requires either OEM approval baked into the aircraft’s type certificate or a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) - documented proof that equipment meets applicable airworthiness standards for a specific airframe. That means design documentation, environmental qualification testing, electromagnetic compatibility testing, and quality management system rigor that, for most of aviation’s modern era, only large companies like Garmin or Collins Aerospace could absorb.

The regulatory landscape had been shifting. The General Aviation Revitalization Act of 2013 pushed the FAA to reduce regulatory burden on small aircraft product development. ASTM International had developed technical frameworks for light aircraft that gave smaller companies a more navigable certification pathway, and the FAA was increasingly open to industry-developed safety standards as a route to approval.

Dynon’s Target Strategy: Three Airframes, Tens of Thousands of Aircraft

Rather than certifying for every aircraft type, Dynon concentrated on three of the most common certified single-engine platforms in the active fleet:

• Cessna 172
• Cessna 182
• Piper PA-28 family (Cherokee, Archer, Arrow)

Focusing on a small set of well-documented airframes made the STC process manageable. In 2018, the FAA approved the SkyView HDX for those aircraft - and the certified avionics market changed.

What the SkyView HDX Actually Is

The SkyView HDX centers on a 10-inch capacitive touchscreen primary flight display, responsive like a modern tablet rather than the firm-press resistive screens of older avionics. Resolution is 1024 x 768 - not a consumer electronics benchmark, but sunlight-readable at full brightness, which is a non-trivial engineering achievement at this price point.

Synthetic vision renders a three-dimensional terrain environment on the attitude display using an onboard database. Mountains, valleys, obstacles, runways, and traffic are projected on the PFD for spatial awareness in IMC. The picture is functionally comparable to more expensive certified displays, if not as graphically refined as a Garmin G500 TXi or G1000 NXi.

GPS navigation supports LPV approaches (localizer performance with vertical guidance) - the closest equivalent to a full ILS that doesn’t require ground-based infrastructure. LPV minima can go as low as 200 feet AGL with visibility minimums as low as one-half mile in favorable cases. That is serious instrument capability in a package priced for private owner budgets.

Engine monitoring is one of the HDX’s genuine strengths. The system displays cylinder head temperatures, exhaust gas temperatures, oil pressure, oil temperature, fuel flow, manifold pressure, and RPM on a single screen with trend display and data logging. For pilots flying lean of peak and managing individual cylinder temperature spreads, the Dynon engine display is more readable than many dedicated engine monitors that have been standard certified equipment for decades.

The autopilot uses Dynon’s own servos and flight director - a capable two-axis system that tracks GPS courses, flies approaches with vertical guidance, and holds altitude. It is not a Garmin GFC 500, which remains the general aviation autopilot benchmark, but the Dynon AP is reliable and the price differential between the two systems is a real factor in any ownership decision.

Dynon’s Software Update Model

One of Dynon’s most durable competitive advantages is how it handles software. The company has pushed substantial capability additions to existing hardware at no charge, repeatedly, over many years. Features that would require a hardware swap with other vendors arrived as over-the-air updates for Dynon owners. That philosophy came directly from the experimental community, where owners expected their avionics vendor to keep products current. Dynon carried it into the certified market.

The Installer Network: A Genuine Operational Consideration

Garmin has authorized service centers in virtually every major city, a deep bench of trained technicians, and a parts pipeline running for over two decades. A malfunctioning GTN 750 has repair options within reasonable distance almost anywhere in the country.

Dynon’s certified installer network has grown meaningfully since the 2018 approval, but it remains thinner than Garmin’s - particularly at smaller airports and in rural areas. Pilots based near a large hub are likely fine. Pilots based at a grass strip hours from the nearest city should identify a Dynon STC installer before committing to the purchase.

How the Market Responded

The most significant industry consequence of Dynon’s certification was competitive. Garmin responded by creating a certified version of its G3X Touch - previously an experimental-only platform - at a price point directly competitive with the HDX. That is the market signal worth understanding: the company that built a premium certified avionics business on the G1000 built a lower-cost certified product because Dynon forced the economics. Price competition at the top of the avionics market had not worked that way for a long time.

Avidyne has responded differently. Its IFD series navigators continue to compete effectively on nav-com functionality with a genuinely good pilot interface, but the company does not have a primary flight display system in the sub-$20,000 bracket competing directly with the HDX’s installed price.

Why This Matters for Flight Schools

For flight training operations, the impact is concrete. Replacing a steam-gauge Cessna 172 panel with full glass used to mean a capital decision in the $50,000–$65,000 range, including installation labor. With Dynon, that transformation can happen for under $25,000 in many cases. That gap is the difference between a school that continues flying round gauges because the capital outlay doesn’t pencil out, and one that can advertise glass panel training to students entering a professional aviation environment that is entirely glass.

Who the HDX Is - and Isn’t - Right For

For pilots flying hard IFR in actual IMC regularly, the depth of the Garmin certified ecosystem, the maturity of Garmin navigation databases, and the density of the service network may justify the price premium. Dynon is not competing in the turbine, pressurized piston twin, or complex high-performance aircraft space. Pilots whose primary concern is redundancy architecture will find Garmin’s AHRS redundancy options and backup instrument ecosystem offer more layers.

But for the owner of a Cessna 172 or Piper Cherokee who has been flying steam gauges and treating glass as something that existed only in someone else’s budget - Dynon changed that conversation. The price gap between a steam-gauge aircraft and a glass-equipped equivalent, which once stood at roughly $45,000, now sits around $8,000 in a comparable aircraft transaction. That is the measure of what one product approval did to a market.

What Dynon demonstrated in 2018 is that the FAA certification pathway for avionics is accessible to smaller, technically focused companies willing to target specific airframe platforms and do the engineering work. The wall is climbable. The industry implications of that proof outlast any single product.

Key Takeaways

• Dynon Avionics received FAA STC approval for the SkyView HDX in 2018, targeting the Cessna 172, Cessna 182, and Piper PA-28 family - among the most common certified singles in the active fleet.
• The HDX offers a 10-inch capacitive touchscreen, synthetic vision, LPV approach capability (minimums as low as 200 ft AGL / ½ mile), and full engine monitoring with data logging at a certified-aircraft price point.
• Panel upgrade costs dropped from $50,000–$65,000 (Garmin G1000 era) to under $25,000 for comparable aircraft, making glass cockpit upgrades viable for individual owners and small flight schools.
• Garmin’s competitive response - a certified version of the G3X Touch - confirmed that Dynon’s entry forced genuine price competition across the certified avionics market for the first time in years.
• The primary practical limitation is Dynon’s installer network, which has grown since 2018 but remains thinner than Garmin’s, particularly at rural and smaller airports - a real pre-purchase consideration for remotely based owners.