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GTN650 and GTN750 into a TB20

No, there is an MFD in production, the Avidyne EX600.

http://www.avidyne.com/products/ex600/index.html

Peter wrote:

GTN650 does well – it makes a good keypad

Really though? I think the GTN650 makes a terrible keypad, which is why I input everything to the 750 and have it crossfill to the 650.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Alexis wrote:

in production, the Avidyne

When you see the words “in production” and “Avidyne” in the same sentence, be afraid, be very afraid.

I have heard recently that there may be a legal suit around the TAS ADS-B fiasco and imbroglio.

EGKB Biggin Hill

I think Avidyne quite possibly still make that EX600. The Q is as before – does it work fully with a Garmin GPS. Years ago Avidyne had money – they were the main supplier to Cirrus. Then Garmin pushed them out and they were left with the old cash cows.

The GTN650 keypad thing was tongue in cheek – what I meant is that it isn’t much good for anything other than a keypad It’s like a KLN94 – a text box, which in flight can display distances, ETAs, the Landing FOB, etc.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I am sure it does. The EX5000, which is the 600s big brother and which should be very similar technically, was the standard equipment in thousands of Cirruses between 2003 and 2007 with two GNS430/Ws.

The 600 has, from the description all the same features, except the engine page.

(I would also prefer IFD540/IFD440)

Last Edited by at 03 Oct 08:23

Do it properly Peter. Get rid of the analogue wiring and external switching and it becomes much simpler and removes many potential failure modes. You only require 3 twisted pairs between each GTN and the Sandel. These are for NAV and GPS to the Sandel and OBS back to the GTN. Annunciation and all deviations are on the digital busses.

The Sandel tech support guy has confirmed this. Interesting, since it isn’t what I was told previously. It would mean extracting my removable harness (going to 2xSN3500 and a big milspec connector picking up loads of aircraft signals) and removing a lot of wires from it, and adding the ARINC429 ones. That’s OK. The “big deal” is, as always, in dealing with the centre stack, which has some wires going directly into it so while – on the GT – it is straightforward to remove whole (if you know how) these wires would need cutting and inserting a connector. AFAICS it is mainly a bundle of ~11 Gray code signals from the KEA130A altimeter. I don’t think one can put in a 650 and 750 with the centre stack in situ, even though one can access the left and right outside sides of it.

Point taken that the 750 has a much better user interface than the 650 and FP entry would be done on the 750. So the plan for the 650 would be as a receiver for the FP crossfill, and used (like my KLN94) for textual data display and enroute FP manipulation (shortcuts, DCTs etc).

All this, about 30k, basically to get LPV…

I am sure it does

I would need to be WAY more “sure” than that. Because, once the stuff is installed, and doesn’t quite work, everybody will walk away from it. In this business, everything works on the fait accompli principle (because nobody will rip out 20k’s worth of newly installed kit) and due diligence is wholly on the aircraft owner.

Then the Q is: is the GTN750 a better MFD than the Avidyne EX600? The EX600 is 640×480 but any more than that is wasted at the typical viewing distance. Jepp terminal charts were designed for 800×600 so if you display them “fit width” onto a 540 wide LCD, that works fine (you see only half the plate of course but that’s the case with everything smaller than the huge glass panels).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

One issue which I wonder about is what will each EHSI’s OBS (course pointer) be feeding? The only way I can see is to dedicate LHS EHSI to GPS1 and RHS EHSI to GPS2 (or vice versa). You can’t feed both EHSIs’ OBS to both GPSs, can you, and if you did, where would you select which one gets what? One could do it with more external switching.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

there are no panel mounted products that run a decent VFR chart

I’ve seen Garmin showcase its G1000 NXi with French SIA/IGN VFR charts. I would expect that:

  1. other VFR charts are available; possibly the same as on Garmin Pilot (DFS, NATS, ENAV; no CartaBossy, Air Million, etc). Pricing is another matter altogether, and is completely unknown to me.
  2. the new G500/G600/G700TXi can do the same; see https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/prod588726.html and https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/prod588727.html
  3. possibly it is coming to GTNs also in a future update.
    It seems that on the uncertified side the G3X Touch can do the same: I expect this:https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/prod167453.html to be the DFS product.
Last Edited by lionel at 05 Oct 19:14
ELLX

Interesting. Those would be raster charts i.e. North-Up only. That’s pretty good for VFR.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Those would be raster charts i.e. North-Up only.

There is no technological reason that raster charts cannot be rotated, although
# When flying south, in “heading/track up mode”, all writing would be upside-down :)
# Whether these MFDs allow heading/track up mode for raster charts is an open question

Here’s a video showing an FAA VFR sectional for a few seconds on a G1000NXi.
Last Edited by lionel at 05 Oct 19:26
ELLX
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