I have more or less given up offering advice on panel upgrades as until I can get a good look at the panel and more importantly what is behind the panel most comments are meaningless.
The chances are that if you are doing a partial upgrade you are going to hang your reputation on someone else’s thirty year old wire rats nest or replace the lot and have to overprice the job as a consequence.
I am always happy to look at a potential job and being less than 15 min flying time from EGTK you are welcome to drop by.
In my opinion tightly integrated glass solutions offer unparalleled user experience. I’m flying behind an all dual Dynon Skyview and honestly, wouldn’t like to go back to round gauges, even in the form of GI275.
AFAIK Dynon is working on autopilot STC for BE 33 series, no idea when that would be available and if you would ba able to use the FAA STC
The big advantage of Dynon is that one can order the stuff directly from OEM and your Part 66 mechanic, can sigh off the installation. No dealer required. At the end of the day, the setup might be cheaper than you expect.
You might also want to look at the G3x, but I’m sure G would require that a dealer gets paid for installation.
Of course, in 20 years it all would be obsolete and unsupported, as anything we use today.
@RV14 BE-33 F33A
I must have missed the aircraft type in the initial post. That might me a useful piece of information
MichaLSA wrote:
Whatever money you spent will be lost, so only do it if you are absolutely certain you fly down the invest to zero book value imho.
I tend to agree on the avionics part, most potential buyers are completely fixated on the engine time and think that when the engine is high time but running fine you should basically give the airframe for free, in that logic most buyers consider avionics are cool and anyway easy upgradeable at moderate cost….were at the end the cost of that avionics upgrade is the same as an overhauled engine. I might even say that some people install glitzy glass, remove all the old stuff bit have basically downgraded the operational capability of the aircraft by removing a DME, stormscope, old WX radar etc…I always tried to do avionics upgrades which were operationally relevant, bearing in mind what would be next component that needs to be decommissioned due to loss of vendor support. Have an upgrade path for that, compatible with what is installed already. The GI275 is a good path its TSO’d and provides integration with a wide variety of systems.
Silvaire wrote:
All for the price of two of my aircraft in their entirely
That upgrade included an Aspen 1500 (two displays) and a GTN750xi. The rest seems to be the same. Absolutely nice.
The GTN navigators have gone up high in price.
RobertL18C wrote:
GNC255A NAV COM
GTN650xi with remote GPS Mode S ADSB out transponder
GMA345 Audio
GI275 EHSI
We have put the GNC255A, GTN650Xi (no remote txpndr, but it does talk to the existing one and allow data entry) and GMA345 into our TB10 a few years ago. I think it was all-in about 16-17 AMUs. We also put in a G5 as the HSI, imagine G1275 slot in just the same while costing a little more.
Garmin is good kit and I think these ‘separates’ make for a good useable panel. I’m wary of one big screen because of 1) single point of failure, and 2) becoming trapped in a manufacturer’s ecosystem.
The main point is if IFR is needed. Once in this case, there is avionic needed, but a whole lot of additionnal that will help and potentially save your life depending the case.
I am mostly in this case and have seen a very nice plane with good old fashion avionics and everything works greatly. Apart from an Aera (or an Ipad cooled dock), nothing much to add to be good to fly VFR all around Europe… If IFR comes into the plate, it’s 30k€ for the 6 pack, and another 30k€ for the GPS and radio. For a 180hp fixed gear, this is a another plane, as for Michal’s or Silvaire’s story..
A friends Mooney in Austria….
September 2022
Recent Work Completed, Last Week
All for the price of two of my aircraft in their entirely, or maybe a bit more (he gave me only a smile and ‘pretty good guess’). On the other hand his plane has been flown at least three times across the Atlantic, he likes to fly that sort of thing and has earned the money to do it.
Sadly, a friend just took an opposite path lately – buying a second aircraft with all the avionics he wanted. Plan was to transplant the avionics to his – same make and model – aircraft. As it turned out, the second airframe was even in a better shape and it ended in changing aircraft and get rid of the old completely. A very emotional goodbye, but a great lesson to learn from.
Many aircraft for sale now appear to be with loads of money spent for avionics upgrades, gone slightly beyond halfway before realising it is a stupid path ;-). Whatever money you spent will be lost, so only do it if you are absolutely certain you fly down the invest to zero book value imho. There is no business model in applying avionics upgrade and expecting even partly payback of the invest.
