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Exchange Autopilot options for a TB20

News from the US:

Garmin now has an STC for the GFC 500 installation in our aircraft!!!
The STC applies to the following serial numbers:
Socata TB20/21 S/Ns 275 thru 2184, 2191, 2192, 2194, 2195, 2196, and 2203
Although they now have the STC completed, it will still be a month or so before the associated PMA’d installation parts will be available to shops.

I wonder what happened with S/Ns after 2184? Some clues may be here and here but I certainly can’t see anything obvious. The excluded aircraft seem to be ones issued with fresh paperwork in 2003. Most of them will have been built from parts made in 2001 or so and I wonder what the mods were? However e.g. 2194 was done on 29.08.05 (which itself is unlikely – see here).

I can’t remember if you have to have a GTN navigator, but you do have to have the G5 and the autopilot software actually runs inside that. This advertorial from 2017 has some interesting snippets.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I have an Avidyne IFD540 navigator and an older GNS 430. The G5 is connected as a primary attitude indicator, I will probably need to replace the Sandel 3308 EHSI with a G5 HSI in order to make it work.

Most probably I will also need a bunch of Garmin converters, and other accessories as well. I wonder how much will everything cost in the end.

At least something new in the A/P department for TB20 owners after 20 years or more!

LRIA, Romania

Peter wrote:

I can’t remember if you have to have a GTN navigator, but you do have to have the G5 and the autopilot software actually runs inside that. This advertorial from 2017 has some interesting snippets.

Peter, does that mean that you can install an extra G5 (somewhere in the corner? ;) ), different navigator and then a GFC?
I mean for your personal aircraft (N113AC).

EGTR

I just re-watched the presentation videos from Garmin, it seems all you need is a simple G5 as AI, no need for an HSI…

LRIA, Romania

does that mean that you can install an extra G5 (somewhere in the corner? ;) ), different navigator and then a GFC?
I mean for your personal aircraft (N113AC).

I have no idea; I have not followed this area of avionics, due to lack of a need to know the details

I would not install the GFC500. Firstly it won’t fly an ILS without GPS working which I regard as a pointless loss of systems redundancy (and sure enough almost nobody buying a GFC500 is aware of this). Secondly my KFC225 does a great job, and I know its issues etc. One day I will install a 650+750 or 2×IFD540 (right now I favour the latter, due to excellent responses to some weird tech questions of mine) and then feed ARINC429 roll steering to the LH SN3500 (to both SN3500s actually, for redundancy) and use the SN3500’s roll steering converter function to drive the autopilot. Then the EHSI will reflect what the autopilot is actually doing. If I could find a really good installer I would do this work ASAP but I have no idea where to go, and it has to be local because major avionics work “at a distance” is a recipe for a disaster, as some people here have found out… (one of them losing his plane and 30k).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I am currently looking at alternatives to my – standard, but still analog vacuum based – BK six-pack setup. Favorites are currently either two G5s or two GI275s. Together with them it may be worthwile looking at a new autopilot but as long as my KFC150 works and does its job I don‘t exactly know why I should throw it out. It can fly ILSs without GPS.

Safe landings !
EDLN, Germany

I certainly have the impression that a lot of people have a lot of money burning a hole in their pocket and they are looking for something to spend it on.

Their autopilot is not working right but that really because it is buggered, and it would be fine if they spent 1/10 of that money getting it fixed properly by one of the specialist shops in the US which do nothing but that all day.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Their autopilot is not working right but that really because it is buggered, and it would be fine if they spent 1/10 of that money getting it fixed properly by one of the specialist shops in the US which do nothing but that all day.

That may be true for some AP’s but I doubt it is true for others. Certainly, before you throw away a relatively good system you should go to an Autopilot Whisperer and have it checked through thoroughly. They may well be able to improve it or if they can not, they will know what to do next.

I recall having to deal with an old Autoflite system of Piper’s heritage which had all the bells and whistles but needed a really good handling, where all the club pilots wiped their hands off, saying it don’t work it is garbage. Well, I had some people’s eyes pop out getting that thing to fly an ILS to minimums without a problem after a serious session of RTFM and one rather intense flight testing the thing back and forth. In my memory, it was way better than some Special Tech AP’s I’ve come across recently.

That was the one cringe moment with that Jimmy’s world character, who threw out a working Autocontrol III with a Stec 60-Alt pitch channel in favour of some unknown AP product. IMHO if that thing worked, I would never have touched it and instead gotten an Aspen and wire it up properly.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Peter wrote:

I would not install the GFC500. Firstly it won’t fly an ILS without GPS working which I regard as a pointless loss of systems redundancy (and sure enough almost nobody buying a GFC500 is aware of this).

Um, thanks for pointing out that tidbit of information. Yea, that would be a total no go for me as well.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

I am not sure why @Peter thinks the GFC500 cannot fly ILS without a GPS signal…

Maybe it’s from Avidyne forums where there were discussed cases when the autopilot treated automatic switch from GPS to LOC as a GPS failure? That is to be expected, as the Garmin navigators don’t automatically switch, as the IFD units from Avidyne do.

LRIA, Romania
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