The Piper Meridian turboprop single will soon receive a production-line upgrade to Avidyne’s Entegra cockpit as a replacement for the airplane’s original Meggitt avionics, the Vero Beach, Fla.-based airplane manufacturer announced last month. The flight-deck change for the Meridian puts Avidyne aboard almost the entire Piper line-up after the lightplane maker earlier brought optional glass Entegra systems to several of its piston models.

The standard Entegra cockpit in the Meridian will feature three 10.4-inch-diagonal displays, consisting of pilot and copilot EXP5000 primary flight displays and EX5000 multifunction display (MFD). In addition to typical flight-pertinent information, the Entegra EXP5000 can also show primary engine instruments, integrated flight-director command bars, pilot-selectable moving-map flight plan data, horizontal situation indicator, an RMI pointer and digital RMI readouts.

The radar-capable EX5000 MFD installed in the center of the panel in the Meridian provides a moving map showing GPS flight plan, topographic terrain, obstacles, major roads and rivers and special-use airspace, as well as lightning, traffic and terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS) views.

The MFD also comes standard with the first implementation of the EMax engine instrumentation system for turbine engines. Options to the package include Avidyne’s MultiLink datalink, XM WX graphical weather and Jeppesen’s Jepp-View electronic chart display service.

The changeover to Entegra avionics will be made in the middle of this month. The price for Entegra-equipped Meridians increases from $1.81 million to $1.895 million.

Piper also offers FlightMax Entegra integrated avionics for the Warrior III, Archer III, Arrow III, Saratoga HP, TC, 6X and 6XT piston-powered airplanes.