I get as much pleasure from my avionics as I do from the rest of my aircraft, saddo that I am.
It just goes to show, Howard, that we are all different and, when push comes to shove, you have to decide for yourself what’s important to you.
I’m trying to imagine a plane made 27 years ago being too old to warrant investment – a 1990 Bonanza would be a late model plane. Re the avionics, I’d say calculate the money you’ve saved on car depreciation and spend that amount on avionics (depreciation), at least avionics will provide some additional utility!
By mission profile I simply meant it does what you want from it.
Many people don’t consider that properly, regardless of how much money they have.
So many opinions…and good ones too. Unfortunately many clash with each other to some extent : Heart and head I guess. There is no right answer.
I have been getting old and sensible in recent years. I haven’t bought a ridiculous car for 8 years after previously swapping them out every three years or so. I think I’ll probably end up just swapping out the old 25kHz radio because (i) it’s a bit broken and (ii)I’d like 8.33 redundancy / ATIS monitoring. I don’t fancy the slim Trig TY-96 despite the fact that it will fit my panel without bother, simply because the trig unit is orange with oversized digits and doesn’t match the rest of my panel. I think the panel will look a bit patchy and untidy if I go the Trig route. (Actually – see edit beneath my name in this post – I have changed my mind about the Trig) I’d like to install a Garmin GTR 225, but it’s taller than the radio it will be replacing and the old radio is right in the middle of the panel. Does anyone know if moving further down the centre panel the items beneath the old radio, to make room or the larger Garmin unit, is a big job in a TB20? I’m rather hoping not, otherwise I need to think again…
A few people have emailed me and like Jesse and Mooney Driver above they recommend the Aspen kit as a better move to improve my plane. However, I wear reading glasses when I fly, but only find them necessary some of the time because I can fly on steam gauges most of the time without glasses – there are big helpful hands on the dials like clock hands. At present I don’t have to read small digits on moving tapes. I’m thinking that I’d be dependent on glasses all the time with an Aspen unit. Do other people agree?..and what does a single Aspen unit cost to install in the UK?
Thanks again everyone,
Howard
EDIT: Actually, I’ve just compared picture of my panel with pics of the Trig TY-96 and I think the Trig unit will look great…I’ll just go for that and save all the heartache of moving stuff around.
Howard,
I think you have identified the few bits and pieces yourself which might be worth looking at. A Com with a barely readable display is one of them. The DME doesn’t hurt anyone and the 530W is a quite lovely box to have.
If anything, I’d upgrade the com and leave the rest in peace, maybe upgrade the transponder to an ADS-B capable one if the need arises, which it does not yet.
For utility, I would second Jesse, look at an Aspen. I know several folks who have one in airplanes with the KAP 150, it adds a lot of value in the sense that you get GPSS and other goodies. YOu can even keep your HSI as a luxury CDI for the NAV 2.
I’d defiitly leave the 530W in peace, it is more than enough for IFR in Europe and a quite capable box.
Timothy wrote:
If you adopt that philosophy, and completely forget about asset value, it makes this kind of decision much easier. Even more so if your “advancing years” allow you to think in terms of your flying mortality. How many more years have you realistically got?The only answer then is “how much am I going to enjoy my aircraft over the coming years if I leave in the 530W and KNS80, and how much joy will I get from a GTN?”
With experimental aircraft, a wise and well known saying is: “build the aircraft YOU want !”. It’s all too easy to get entangled into thinking about what to do to increase re-sale value. This ends up in a plane that is not exactly as you would like it to be, and lots of lots of work, and there is no way of knowing what the re-sale value will be 10 years from now anyway. Better to forget all about re-sale value, the airframe is “worth” €10k tops. But, a used GTN750 and other modern Garmin equipment, is likely to be in high demand for the foreseeable future, is easy to sell, and the price is fairly well known. I would also set the value of the aircraft to zero, especially a 27 year old one, but I would include the re-sale value for any equipment on board having a real re-sale value.
Howard wrote:
A KMA 24 audio panel with a few faults (the marker beacons don’t work and the panel refuses to drive the plane’s speaker)
Did you find out if this in the wiring or in the unit? A replacement KMA-24 wouldn’t be that expensive. For sure newer audio panels are more capable. Do you need / want this new functionality, or are you satisfied with a working KMA-24?
Howard wrote:
A KNS 80 RNAV navigator, which used to be the bee’s knees in the 1980s and which works perfectly, but nowadays I only use it as a normal NAV/DME. I don’t use its clever move-the-VOR function at all. It’s also very bulky in terms of the panel space it takes up. Some people love these things.
If it is working fine, I wouldn’t recommend to replace this, unless you need the panel space. Buying another VOR / DME would add cost, without many true benefit, other then panel space, when needed.
Howard wrote:
A worn out Bendix-King KY196A 25kHz radio with an LED display that’s partially invisible, especially when cold. This radio is of course outlawed in the UK as from 1st January 2018.
As others informed, there is no need to replace is. If you want to replace it, the Trig TY-96 has the same size and is a quality radio.
Howard wrote:
That’s a fair chunk money on an aging plane, and I doubt very much it will add very much to the selling price if I sell the plane in a few years’ time. (It will doubtless help it to sell when in competition with planes of similar era that have older avionics.)
Altough it might help selling it, you will never get the investment back. It seems your comparing doing almost nothing against a major upgrade. I think the most important question for yourself would be, would you want to keep you aircraft on long term. You current know the status of your aircraft. If you upgrade it, you could / should enjoy it for years to come. When you buy another aircraft, you might be faced with hidden defects, which can result in additional cost.
I have always discounted to zero my mental “book value” of my aeroplanes the moment I buy them.
I have always had old aeroplanes and, as a rule of thumb, they cost me their insured value every year. If I do sell them (or, in one case, get an insurance payout) then that is an unlooked-for bonus.
If you adopt that philosophy, and completely forget about asset value, it makes this kind of decision much easier. Even more so if your “advancing years” allow you to think in terms of your flying mortality. How many more years have you realistically got?
The only answer then is “how much am I going to enjoy my aircraft over the coming years if I leave in the 530W and KNS80, and how much joy will I get from a GTN?”
For example, if you calculate that you have ten years left (I have no idea how old you are, this is illustrative) then you are going to fly 500 more hours. A £30k bill is therefore going to cost you £60 per hour. Effectively that is going to take your TB20 run rate from (say) £180 ph to £240 per hour. Is the joy you are going to get going to justify a 33% hike?
Indeed, in your position I would be thinking also of an Aspen. Is that worth a further £20 an hour? It would be for me, which is why I have a fantabulosa panel, but no-one can answer that for you.
Is that the kind of man-maths you had in mind?
But do think seriously about the Aztec. They are really lovely to own and fly.
@tmo @wigglyamp thank you. Someone I know emailed me off board to say the same thing as you and it is very interesting and not well publicised. However, having two radios is very helpful in terms of redundancy and for monitoring e.g. ATIS broadcasts, and I haven’t ever flown a plane with just one radio, although I’m sure there are many. I would only really feel comfortable with two.
Correct – only one 8.33 radio needed for Part NCO, and an existing second radio can remain on 25kHz for retained frequencies such as the emergency channel.
