Given the safety enhancement of a reliable, cheap, IFR GPS box why hasn’t the market supplied such a device? The unit could be used VFR if you didn’t subscribe to the IFR database.
Garmin used to have the 155XL and the 400 which were IFR GPS only boxes, but am not aware there is a similar type of unit being offered today – the current kits (Garmin, Avidyne, etc) are all integrated type boxes costing many multiples of what a simple IFR GPS would cost.
Have I missed a product provider which is selling a cheap no bells no whistles IFR GPS?
Garmin also make the GTN625/725 which are just GPS units, and also the GTN635 which is a GPS/COM, so there are options that’s aren’t all-in-one fully integrated solutions.
Freeflight Systems still make the TNL2101 panel-mount GPS but it’s not WAAS so is limited to BRNav.
wigglylamp thank you, will check Freeflight out – there is no reason why a stand alone BRNAV IFR GPS can’t be supplied relatively cheaply.
wigglyL FreeFlight is heavy iron GPS, was looking for a 155xl type solution. These basic non-WAAS boxes still retail second hand at around $1-2k and are still database supported.
My guess is that in the USA, and elsewhere, there is no market for a non-W GPS, and in Europe (whose GA market is maybe 1/10 of the US one anyway) the RNAV1/PRNAV cloud has been hanging over everything for almost a decade so a BRNAV-only GPS is not something anybody will try to sell today. Even the GNS430 has the PRNAV LoA…
Strictly speaking, any GPS should be capable of PRNAV. If it is not PRNAV approved, it’s not by design, it’s by lack of effort to procure the approval.
Even a €50 GPS from a camping shop is capable of RNAV 0.3 
but only certain types of paperwork support the desired regulatory job creation
That’s an over-simplication; for BRNAV / IFR (non-W) approval you need baro input, geoid correction for the entire database coverage (the KLN94 implements this with a lookup table), some sort of software development QA process, and stuff like that, so it will always be a somewhat specialised area. Even my £550 Samsung S7 doesn’t bother to correct the geoid, so it shows a ~160ft altitude error just about everywhere in Europe, despite containing some 10GB of bloatware software which is about 3 orders of magnitude more than a KLN94 or a GNS430…
Peter wrote:
Even the GNS430 has the PRNAV LoA…
It does? Do you have any details?
As it should be. Great aeroplane
Peter wrote:
The big joke has been that a C150 with a GNS430, with the correct annunciators etc, is PRNAV certifiable
Well it can either meet the RNAV 1 requirements or not. If it meets it then fine. Not too many going into the mandatory PRNAV airspace at Schiphol I expect but regardless.
