I have several questions for those who make a living installing avionics:
1) Are the 8.33 upgrades manna from Heaven, extra money that feels great? Or are pilots spending on radios what they would have spent in your shop anyway, perhaps on something else?
2) What % of your business is related ( directly or indirectly) to fulfilling regulatory requirements versus doing what owners would request anyway?
Let me make clear that if regulatory idiocy increased my income by 25%, I would be happy. I am am not passing judgment on anyone, just asking whether these requirements are driving revenue, or simply reallocating the existing pool of money to upgrades that the regulators want.
Speaking for myself, the 8.33 requirement is driving me into the shop. Once there, I start thinking what else I want to do.
WhiskeyPapa wrote:
Speaking for myself, the 8.33 requirement is driving me into the shop. Once there, I start thinking what else I want to do.
I have heard that many times in the UK and also from someone in Belgium.
I think that our problem in the UK is going to be that there are just not enough avionics shops to cope.
So once the 8.33 sugar rush ends, it will be a tough space to be in?
What you mean in compulsory ADS-B world? Or PBN land? I have been flying since 1971 and it’s never let up in that time 
I think the big difference with 8.33 is that it is being made mandatory for VFR.
The “Mode S wars” (which were the biggest regulatory cockup in many years) were smaller than 8.33 because local flyers (numerically, most of GA) could avoid it. And the “civil liberties” crowd hated it anyway.
ADS-B, PBN (PRNAV or whatever) is IFR so affects a very small %. I cannot ever see ADS-B being mandatory for VFR OCAS in all (or even most) of Europe. Currently you don’t even need a transponder in most countries for that, and it would be a holy war.
I can’t answer the OP as an avionics installer but the shops I have spoken to or visited recently are totally busy with 8.33 work. Clearly it is lucrative, and the average job value seems bigger than the average Mode S job value.
Peter,
I assure you that conspicuity is going to be the next big thing.
8.33 is not good for the industry, at the moment the radio people can’t keep up with demand and once that demand has been met the market will be flooded with new and much more reliable radios………. so very little box fixing work in the future.
A true boom to bust business, I guess that is why the best box fixer in the U.K. Quit the business at the end of last year.
The boxes may fail less often (I am not sure I see that as a negative) but don’t worry, the connectors will continue to corrode, and the boxes will still interfere with each other, their wiring will abrade and cause smoke in the cockpit, PTT switches will go short circuit, circuit breakers will continue to fail, ignition looms and strobes will still cause crackling; and the more radios there are installed, the more this’ll happen.
And as people decide that they may as well stick in a navigator while they’re at it, the maintenance problems will extend to all sorts of other things.
There’ll be plenty to do.
I guess that is why the best box fixer in the U.K. Quit the business at the end of last year.
If it is who I think it is, my info is that their only guy who knew what a volt was reached the age of 120 and retired and predictably they could not replace him. It is virtually impossible to find electronics engineers who would want to work in GA. Anybody who is good enough to fix a radio from the MM circuit diagrams can get 2x more money in industry.
There’ll be plenty to do
I agree.
Peter
I think he would resent the suggestion that he was 120 !
