This has just popped up on U.S. Avweb.
It's an often-churned over topic.
Views?
While I agree with a lot of it, I think what is missing is the "European touring pilot/owner" perspective, where if you get a G500/G1000 failure in some country which is, shall we say, less well catered for in terms of avionics engineers, you have 2 choices
1) Stay there until you can fly a Garmin dealer out there, with a load of replacement kit (awfully expensive), or
2) Fly home with 90% of your panel blank (probably a strictly-VFR proposition)
Whereas in the USA there is a Garmin dealer on every corner. They are, from what I consistently hear from the USA, no better on average than UK avionics installers (see e.g. the appalling installer notes in my TCAS report) but you do need an authorised dealer for a lot of the work, because of configuration access codes.
I appreciate that a G1000 is not retrofittable (in light GA) so if you have a G1000 you never had a choice anyway.
I also observe that when I land at some far away place, and get talking to other pilots who also flew there from far away, I see very few glass cockpits. That could be because they form a statistically small % of the current touring GA fleet, or perhaps the owners of glass don't quite have the confidence to push their luck. When my plane was new, I had loads of avionics failures (most of the panel was replaced during that time; I think the new plane was built with used kit that came back with intermittent faults) and didn't fly anywhere far for the whole year.
I have never seen a G500 installation that I would consider to be dangerous or difficult to fly home in case the G500 is broken. G500 is retrofit which means the finest of the old gear will remain and redundancy is one of the goals. G1000 only come with new aircraft and there the redundancy is usually the legal minimum. I would not feel comfortable in a SR22 without G1000 and having to fly home.
Well Peter, I can tell you first hand after flying roughly 600 hours in Garmin G10000 equiped aircraft, that i only once had a partial failure of one 630W GIA unit. Being a redunant setup, there still was another GIA left.
So yes, i fly to remote places like greek islands and not giving the avionics a second thought.
Just my experience.
Regards, Paul
Indeed, in any G1000 setup with 2 PFDs, they are independent. If one fails, you can fly on the other.
In my Avidyne it is the same. 2 independent PFDs with 2 ADAHRS. If the MFD fails I would happily fly on the PFD + 2 GTN650s.
I think reliability is a matter of perception. How is this any worse than a vacuum pump driven system?
And in a G1000 system, in the really unlikely case everything is going dark (e.g. no alternator, no main and backup battery anymore or the avionics illumination rheostat failing at night...), you still have backup attitude, altitude and speed indicators and even a magnetic compas.
The next failure is to have the vacuum going down and at the same time your ipad explodes due to the lithium battery, so no GPS anymore. Maybe the last one is to get static and pitot icing and your your hands so cold that you cannot read the paper maps (yes, it could be very cold in Greece). Anyway your plane got caught by a lightning just 2 minutes ago, so now, time to declare an emergency!
Maybe time to sleep at night :-)
I can see the logic in some of the Avweb comments advocating flat panel for navigation, individual gauges for aircraft control. I like that idea especially given how good "portable" navigation has become, and the zero paperwork requirement for that portable equipment. Not for IFR obviously, but not everybody flies IFR.
My thinking is also based on the fact that when a gauge on my aircraft goes wonky, I can pop it out of the panel with four screws and a hose clamp in 10 minutes, carry it over to the shop on the other side of the field for overhaul, reinstall it in a couple of days, get my buddy the IA to check my work and sign the logbook, and go flying. Total cost might be $200, at least that's what it was last time :-)
Portability and flexibility for repair and service does have benefits. In any sphere, I generally dislike vertical or horizontal system integration - the theoretical advantages are usually eaten up the supplier and middlemen, and I end up being coerced.
YMMV
My thinking is also based on the fact that when a gauge on my aircraft goes wonky, I can pop it out of the panel with four screws and a hose clamp in 10 minutes, carry it over to the shop on the other side of the field for overhaul, reinstall it in a couple of days, get my buddy the IA to check my work and sign the logbook, and go flying.
That (the much improved management of the AOG scenario) was what I was getting at.
In the bizjet world they have to deal with this too, but they have essentially unlimited funding for on-site servicing, worldwide.
Even at my own base airport (EGKA) there is nobody who can touch the integrated products. I would have to do a (VFR) flight to one of several airports, each of which is at least 2 train journeys away from home.
I wasn't suggesting that G500/G1000 products are relatively unreliable; I don't think they are. Well, not those two, anyway...
the much improved management of the AOG scenario
I think the Aspen system solves this reasonably well - a failure is simply a matter of shipping out a replacement unit (available in 24 hours just about anywhere that fedex delivers) and having any instrument engineer pull out the old unit and slot in the new. No config work (all settings are stored in a separate config module) and no tools beyond a screwdriver needed.
Peter, I know your opinion on the Aspen. Give me a couple of years and I'll have an opinion on the reliability (mine is only 9 months and 100 hours old). In terms of utility I could never go back to steam gauges.
How is this any worse than a vacuum pump driven system?
Agreed, both have their weaknesses. I recommend the following read: Final Report No. 2146 by the Swiss Accident Investigation Board SAIB
Tragic event but very interesting. SR22, flying IFR from Geneva to Berlin, diverting to Zurich after alternator failure.
I think the Aspen system solves this reasonably well - a failure is simply a matter of shipping out a replacement unit (available in 24 hours just about anywhere that fedex delivers)
The need to sign up to continued business with a sole supplier is demotivating to me (personally). I prefer 100 or 1000 suppliers than can fix my stuff.
PS last time I had an instrument problem it was a 40 year old VSI reading high. On the way to the instrument shop in my car, I drove the instrument up a grade at 70 mph and was able to replicate the issue, 800 fpm on the gauge relative to a calculated 200 fpm climb rate. Then i knew it was the gauge not the static system. Flexibility surely isn't everything but it's very nice to have.
