If you followed this thread (and some info in this thread) you know that Diamond hasn’t provided any SW upgrade for legacy G1000 avionics for years while the HW upgrades used to be pretty expensive, time consuming and sometimes impossible (like WAAS upgrade because GIA63W is not available any more).
After two years of trying to establish connection with Diamond’s top management and a year after starting Diamond owners’ petition to push DAI in offering solutions, we (informal group of owners coordinated via DAN forum) finally managed to organize series of meetings both with Diamond and Garmin management to discuss possibilities, certification paths and pricing for whole range of Diamond aircrafts featuring different types of avionics (from steam gauge DA40 to legacy G1000 w/wo WAAS to KAP140/GFC700 to NXi phase 1 & 2 equipped DA40/42/62).
While the picture is bit clearer than it used to be in the past we’re still far from clear and acceptable path for the owners interested in performing certain upgrades. The reasons are various – from the certification issues (Transport Canada, FAA and EASA) to backward compatibility. However, in order to gather as much as possible user requirements, we agreed to prepare survey with questions aimed to collect current configuration details and owners’ expectations. This is work in progress but I expect survey to be available by the end of this month.
The survey is intended for all current Diamond aircraft owners (even the latest deliveries will need some SW updates in very near future) and the link to it will be distributed via e-mails in Diamond’s database, probably via e-mails which we collected during collecting petition data, via post at DAN forum and I’ll post it here as well.
Recent news about this initiative are posted at DAN forum (I hope that it’s not against policy of this forum to refer to another forum) but it’s very much US oriented and we don’t have many European owners there. If you have any question it’s the best to ask there in appropriate thread but you can contact me via PM here as well.
Stay tuned!
Nice to see the engagement you are receiving from DAI. Perhaps a bigger elephant in their camp is where/when will they get their next order for an aircraft – I can’t imagine they are too worried about helping previous owners with some upgrades for a few $k.
I don’t believe their heart is in avionics – you are likely pushing a ball uphill but hopefully will be successful. Maybe better getting them to agree to allow Garmin sell upgrades directly.
Maybe better getting them to agree to allow Garmin sell upgrades directly.
Garmin doesn’t want that. For the aircrafts that are still in production they operate this way.
Unfortunately, these upgrades are not just few k$ – they range from 25k$ to 180k$ or even more.
Regarding their backlog, they still have more orders than they can deliver.
I have to agree with Emir the the amount of work Diamond have, I was at the factory just before Christmas doing a maintenance course and the factory was very busy both for new aircraft production and future projects.
DAI’s CEO letter regarding the survey.
Diamond_Aircraft_Letter_to_Owners_28April_13_2020_29_pdf
As promised Diamond published survey and announced that in their Newsletter
Done. The survey is short and it takes only 5 minute to complete. I’m not aware how many owners/operators was contacted by DAI directly and how many participate in this and DAN forums which support this initiative. If you are Diamond aircraft owner/operator and/or if you know one, please share the above listed links.
First week passed, survey is open until May 18th.
Survey timeframe is extended to May 31st and reference to DAN forum is added as a credit to owners who started this initiative.
https://www.diamondaircraft.com/en/about-diamond/newsroom/diamonddiary/article/customer-survey/