DA40NG - Options (Need suggestions)

What @flyingfish says :)

Flyingfish wrote:

It is illegal to fly approaches on it. (I do have it, but on the ipad and basically for free).

Agree with everything that is said, but I do not understand this bit? you mean if you are flying an ILS you have to switch SV+FPV OFF?

Who cares how you fly approaches? you are legal as long as the IAP is legal, you stay above it’s minima, you have it’s equipment and equipment is showing no more than 1/2 scale deviation

As long as you have that monitored you are legal, for your own consumption you can use AP, FD, GPS, HDG, SV, FPV, trim, dead reck, compass, stop watch or crystal balls if you wish

As I often fly a DA40D and DA42 with the G1000 I decided, in the light of this thread to re-read the G1000 users manual to make sure I had what I thought I had.
Only one of the DA42 aircraft I fly has ADF but nowadays it is very rarely used even in training.
The G1000 has TIS (Traffic information system).
The mode S transponder sends position information to ground stations and receives the relative position of other aircraft from the same ground stations and that information is available on PFD and MFD maps pages. So if a controller on the ground can see an aircraft then so can you.
An option is the TAS (traffic advisory system) from the Avidyne 600 series which can be linked into the system but you cannot use TIS and TAS together.
I have never used SVS except on a sim but it might be excellent for those with video gamer skills. It just confuses the hell out of me and I would need to spend quite a lot of time getting used to it.
The DA40’s and DA42s do have a problem with finding somewhere to put your tablet or phone.
The problems with a built in unit are.
1) It seems really expensive
2) will it fit all sizes of phone or tablet or are you limited?
3) Will it be positioned in the ideal spot for you? It is of little use if its stuck somewhere where you lose vision of the fixed panel or is to the right when you are left handed. I have yet ,after many hours flying them, to find a perfect solution. At the moment I have ditched the tablet and am running Skydemon on a smartphone and have 2 fridge magnets strapped on my leg and a metal washer stuck to the back of the smartphone case. Heath Robinson, yes but its about the best solution I have found so far and is a development of something posted on this forum. Kneeboards are too cumbersome for me.
Like many others, when it first came out I thought the G1000 was a great idea and the future of avionics, with its interchangeable LRUs (line replacement unit) which could be removed for repair, exchanged, updated or integrated with equipment from other manufacturers.
Sadly I feel Garmin and or the OEMs have let us down. Whilst I still really like the G1000 it is not the future as Garmin would have you believe. They have even stopped making the simplest solution to upgrade to WAAS ie the G63W and so have turned what seemed a great idea into something owners are wary of now.
Today’s solutions are a very very very expensive upgrade to the latest G1000 Nxi all singing all dancing.
Or to rip it all out and re- install with the current Garmin flavour of the day which is only very very expensive and might not integrate easily with things like stormoscope, TAS, legacy autopilot or whatever.
My advice is to read the small print (actually its quite big print in the G1000 manual, I’ll give them that) on any Garmin equipment you are buying and on any integrated equipment that might be offered as an option and ask yourself "what does that really do for me ?is it worth the money? And in 3 years time will I still be able to use that even if it needs a tweak to software?

krisflyer wrote:

0fficer, that is my dilemma on ADF. I felt it not worth the money and operationally, probably not much use. However, I am aware that for IR training, I may need it.

Flyingfish wrote:

ADF is dead, the legal bullshit about it is immaterial. I never had it and never needed it in over 1000 IFR hours.

Agree with Flyingfish. I just converted my US IR to an EASA IR, and just before my test all the NDBs in the Netherlands were removed! The DE shrugged it off and said it’s not actually a requirement anymore and has been removed from the test schedule.

Only thing I would say is to be sure you want a brand new airplane for the stated mission, and what you would expect your future upgrade to be. You could easily get a well-equipped recent glass panel hour-builder for half the cost that would not depreciate at all in 3 years, then buy new when you know what you want and will keep it for a while. I would also go rent or bum rides in a number of different aircraft in the next few years to see what you really want in an airplane, which is hard to know as a new PPL. Just my two cents.

lionel wrote:

I’m not aware that the two are interchangeable. I think a GFC500 requires a Garmin G5, which krisflyer is not intending to get, while the GFC700 requires a Garmin G1000 (“classic” or NXi), which krisflyer intends to get. Aren’t you confusing with the GFC600?

Ok. krisflyer didn’t mention was glass/indicators he was going to get.

172driver wrote:

Seriously – is this still used in the UK and/or Europe? It’s long gone from the FAA IR syllabus.

That very much depends on the country. In Sweden every instrument runway now has at least one approach that doesn’t (legally) require ADF, so here having an ADF is completely pointless. In the UK, frequently even RNP approaches (legally) require an ADF for the missed approach.

It is certainly still in the IR syllabus.

I don’t think GFC500 is available for 40NG.

I fly a 40NG with GFC700 and it is superb!

ADF only for UK… I believe it’s still required for many approaches there.

ADF is only relevant for training & exams, I am sure one can do without? even the funky UK RNP approaches that require ADF can be flown on radar vectors (CAA legacy policy required radar ATC & onboard ADF for anything in CAA licensed airports), if one loses TXP/COM/GPS in some integrated G1000, it’s highly unlikely that their ADF woks…