One thing which has not been mentioned yet is the resale value. In a few years time, if you decide to sell, glass will certainly sell better.
I see it as the opposite – glass panels become obsolete and unmaintainable eventually. Standard gauges never do. Of course the severity of this issue depends on your time scale, but anything I do with my planes is intended to last long beyond me. 30 years is for example nothing to a plane, a lot to a man.
My choice for a used aircraft would be glass, but not integrated: G5/GI275/SN3500/SN4500/… indicators + GNSS navigator + electronic engine monitor. This way, you can upgrade individual items as you go and leave the rest in place.
Modularization is important with glass because you can remove it progressively as it becomes obsolete. Two big G1000s or similar in a plane is someday going to be somebodies resale value disaster.
Ultranomad wrote:
My choice for a used aircraft would be glass, but not integrated: G5/GI275/SN3500/SN4500/… indicators + GNSS navigator + electronic engine monitor. This way, you can upgrade individual items as you go and leave the rest in place.
Yes. The G1000 or similar systems can be a huge cost trap. However, glass as suggested above is not. I’d add the Aspen line up to that too.
glass panels become obsolete and unmaintainable eventually. Standard gauges never do
Not sure about that @Silvaire… of course, your field is old airplanes, mine is more geared towards homebuilts. You’re in the US, were in EU, and some stuff as we all know is different.
To stay on the subject, talking about the ease of replacing, adapting, calibrating, etc steam gages on certified airplanes…. as a matter of fact, the driving factor that forced me away from certified airplanes was exactly the trouble I had to have those steam gages maintained on some of my previous aircraft. Those (ex) standard gages were just not maintainable anymore, no spares, and above all no one able to work on them analog stuff gages anymore. To top it off having to bow out to all the legal requirements.
I’m sure not saying to equip say a Stearman or Luscombe to a glass panel. But a recent IFR capable machine will benefit from glass, in operation, and in resale value. At least around here 
It’s also a generational thing. In our club the average age has dropped from something like mid-50s to around 40 and if it weren’t for some old(ish) farts like me, it would probably be in the mid 30s. None, and I mean none, of the younger members wants to fly old style avionics. They all gravitate to the airplanes with glass (we have a mix of old-school, modular glass and integrated glass in our fleet). Once the older generation hangs up then headset, round-dial steam gauge airplanes will be a very, very hard sell.
@172driver I think you’re in a particular flying-club mentality group, with people coming and going and few owning. Owners of any age have a different mentality, looking at glass as something to do very carefully so that it can be managed in the future. I’m surrounded by people like me (literally, I’m lounging at my hang-out hangar as I write this) at an airport with 600 operations per day and it’s not a group that’s dying out. Yes we have a Sling-set training operation here too, but what I’m watching flying through the open hangar door on this sunny Saturday are some Yaks, a TB30, an Extra, some T-34s, a polished Cessna 140, a Bellanca Viking, a Globe Swift… and so on (none with glass panels). Among this group the RVs would be the biggest glass users, with panels they seem to change frequently.
@Dan I’m not really into antiques per se, I’m turned on by sustainable ownership and interesting planes of all eras and types. My plane is from the early 70s, hardly an antique and while I’m not into all weather utility the plane is built with more or less the same technology (and has the same engine) as a RV. All the glass I need is an IPad Mini. What non-maintainable steam gauges would be like, I don’t know. If I need one overhauled I can get it done anywhere, or buy new and replace or buy used, overhaul or replace. All for peanuts… and one instrument overhaul shop is on the field.
Where glass panels make sense to me is in homebuilts and other Experimentals where replacing it won’t be as much of a hassle some day, and in very expensive aircraft where the expense of owning and maintaining is in the context of something that costs thousands per month no matter what you do. Also portables that can be tossed and replaced any time. My total cost of owning, storing and flying is about $1000/month, which is mostly hangar rent – everything else was bought and paid for years ago.
Silvaire wrote:
@172driver I think you’re in a particular flying-club mentality group, with people coming and going and few owning.
Actually we all own shares in our fleet and after the pretty high turnover a couple of years ago, mostly due to people aging out, there is hardly any coming and going. Our waitlist is growing longer by the day (we are capped at a certain number of members) and most (all) new applicants are in their 30s. Different crowd from yours.
I would always prefer a plane with avionics set up in place and running fine over a plane having a new engine and old avionics, or any plane without usable avionics.
I’ve seen so many over the decades that bought a plane, flew it some years and then decided to have a full panel upgrade and gave up totally frustrated after having spent a fortune. A friend of mine just chose to equip his 50 years old plane with actual standard avionics and it looks like he’ll be investing more than I ever paid for my whole aircraft, and that is including the glass that was already installed when I bought it. Lucky for him he doesn’t have to care about that amount of money.
Prices for avionics upgrades can just go insane. Put in a new autopilot, GTN750, some glass gauges or a mid-size panel, maybe new engine monitor, and some additional minor items that one wants to replace when you’re upgrading any way, and this can approach six digits in Euros. However one has to say it can really be an incredible amount of labor to get all done.
UdoR wrote:
Prices for avionics upgrades can just go insane.
The problem with avionics upgrades is that once you open that Pandora’s box of a panel, there is no going back. In 99% of the cases it’s actually more efficient to rip out the entire panel, hardware and all, and put in a completely new one. That said, you still have NO idea how much it’ll end up costing.
UdoR wrote:
I would always prefer a plane with avionics set up in place and running fine over a plane having a new engine and old avionics, or any plane without usable avionics.
Amen to that.
172driver wrote:
In 99% of the cases it’s actually more efficient to rip out the entire panel, hardware and all, and put in a completely new one.
Indeed, especially if it involves autopilot installation or if you combine it with a major airframe maintenance. Also, in the course of ripping everything out you may find some unexpected things, including pieces of avionics not connected to anything, just sitting there. In some old airframes, you may also find wiring that’s totally unacceptable by today’s standards (e.g. PVC insulation).
That said, you still have NO idea how much it’ll end up costing.
The biggest source of confusion here is last-minute changes. One can save oneself a lot of trouble and money by analysing the prospective mission profile, defining the “must have” vs. “nice to have”, and doing all the engineering work in advance. Agile development methodologies don’t work here :-)
Silvaire wrote:
@Dan I’m not really into antiques per se, I’m turned on by sustainable ownership and interesting planes of all eras and types. My plane is from the early 70s, hardly an antique and while I’m not into all weather utility the plane is built with more or less the same technology (and has the same engine) as a RV. All the glass I need is an IPad Mini. What non-maintainable steam gauges would be like, I don’t know. If I need one overhauled I can get it done anywhere, or buy new and replace or buy used, overhaul or replace. All for peanuts… and one instrument overhaul shop is on the field.
The OP has expressed that he´s training instrument flying on classic steam instrumentation (presumably the “T”) and does not plan on mountain flying, and that he´ll be happy to consolidate on classic cockpit instrumentation. Further to that the OP has stated that when/if the need arises he´ll upgrade to a multi engine aircraft and at that point it may be sensible to include a more modern glass cockpit. I think this sounds like a sensible approach. We´ve flown airplanes for decades without glass and in fact many of todays modern airlines really only have “limited” glass cockpit installations (without SVS, EVS etc.). Glass is not necessary for the mission of most private pilots. iPads with a moving map is plenty, and an excellent tool, for most pilots needs, in enhancing position awareness. Focus on smart cockpit installation location of the iPad (in the shade of the sun and satellite reception) with easy reference and reach, and keep the steam gauges alive with regular preventive maintenance as per certified requirements (filter change, calibration etc.). When one of those fancy glass displays fail – and they do – you have extended downtime (IFR) and high cost repairs.
