G3X glass display comes with built-in WAAS GPS receiver. Other standard features include Garmin’s SVX synthetic vision display with 3-D “pathways” flight route guidance, EIS engine monitoring, ADAHRS, and available geo-referencing capability on FliteCharts® and SafeTaxi® diagrams.
FliteCharts provides all AeroNav Departure Procedures, Standard Terminal Arrival Routes, approach plates and airport diagrams on your aviation GPS.
USFlyer wrote:
FliteCharts provides all AeroNav Departure Procedures, Standard Terminal Arrival Routes, approach plates and airport diagrams on your aviation GPS.
True, and having seen it in action this stuff is really neat, but you can’t add the them to the G3X internal flight plan as “procedures”, you have to load/fly the flight plan from the IFR GPS.
G3X glass display comes with built-in WAAS GPS receiver. Other standard features include Garmin’s SVX synthetic vision display with 3-D “pathways” flight route guidance, EIS engine monitoring, ADAHRS, and available geo-referencing capability on FliteCharts® and SafeTaxi® diagrams.
FliteCharts provides all AeroNav Departure Procedures, Standard Terminal Arrival Routes, approach plates and airport diagrams on your aviation GPS.
[ my bold ]
Does this mean you can fly GPS (RNAV) approaches using G3X alone i.e. no certified IFR GPS, in Europe?
“The aircraft will easily operate out of 450m grass with MTOW. The RV-10 is 1225kg MTOW, with the payload being about half. Tanks are 225 litres. It’s 260bhp, AVGAS only sadly (a pain at my strip). Fuel burn will be terrifying compared to my previous aircraft!”
For Carlmeek,
I believe there was one model of IO-540 (or was it an O-540?) that runs on Mogas, there was a thread on it a while back on the Vansairforce forum which i cannot find on a quick search now, however IIRC that poster said he contacted lycoming about which of their engines run on autogas, they sent him a list which included a model of the IO-540. I think you will be limited to 260hp variants of the IO-540 running on autogas, since these engines use higher compression ratios to develop more than 260hp, which in turn requires a higher octane of fuel than autogas so if you need more than 260hp you are back to AVGAS.
I have flown in a C182 whose O-540 had a MOGAS STC, if that’s of any relevance.
In fact it belonged to @David – the admin of EuroGA.
Lyco have certified most of the IO-540 models for 91UL, including my 250HP IO-540-C4D5D, but none of the turbocharged ones.
I am most reliably advised by a shop which does a lot of US Exp engines that 9.5:1 pistons in this engine will still run perfectly on 91UL, but above 9:1 you won’t make it to 2000hrs before it wears out.
IMHO the whole business of detonation is not much of an issue if the pilot knows what he is doing, has an instrumented engine (EDM700 etc) and keeps the CHTs to reasonable values. It seems that Lyco’s 91UL certification process was done in compliance with their POH which says the CHT can be up to 500F which is a crazy value. Dyno work done by GAMI also confirms this; they tried to get a TSIO550 engine to detonate and could not do it at any non-crazy CHT and power setting. Their report is online somewhere (George Braly).
Autogas (car petrol) is a big problem these days because you don’t know what is in it – even between summer and winter. But, IMHO, how can car petrol be of relevance to an O/IO540 pilot whose plane is going to carry so much fuel that you would need a redneck-sized pickup truck to carry the jerrycans from the petrol station, plus a redneck to load and unload them (15 × 20 litre can, for me) 
“Are there any uncertified COM/NAV radios with ILS capability?”
I know of the NAV 2000 from VAL avionics in the USA, its a cheaper equivalent of the SL-30 Garmin used to sell but without the comm radio and no backup indicator in the display that the SL-30 used to have. Under FAA experimental regs you can take the signal from a SL 30 and display it on any indicator, the indicator doesn’t have to be TSO’d, so my MGL iEFIS display would work as the indicator.
Here is a discussion on VAL website about how the FAA requirements are a requirement to meet the TSO specs, but not necessarily have gone through the process of certification. This is for FAA requirements, Im not sure how that translates to European requirements! I nearly went the VAL route as i object to the high cost of a certified GTN from Garmin but it would limit my usability of where i can fly IFR, especially a few years down the line as more RNAV procedures are adopted to replace ground based navaids. I’m about a year away from first flight, so I’m going to wait until after flight testing is complete in case something better or cheaper comes along,
http://www.valavionics.com/installation-in-type-certificated-aircraft.html
That’s a brilliant link, @Gafunflier, but I wonder what it exactly means.
It appears to provide a route to installing non-TSOd avionics if you can show that they meet the standards, even though they are not formally certified.
That would not surprise me, because e.g. here in the UK you cannot get prosecuted for filing a false tax return if no tax was actually due. The same principle applies in other areas e.g. the “due diligence” defence with the European CE (mainly EMC) compliance. It is natural justice…
But how do you show the gear meets TSO? It would be very difficult. If you were closely familiar with the TSO specs and you designed it yourself, you could generate a “construction file” which shows compliance.
It would be legal but I wonder how many customers would buy into it?
I don’t understand what the confusion or issue is here.
As stated several times, you can’t fly GPS approaches using a G3X without an IFR certified GPS (eg GTN) connected to it. The ability of the G3X to show some bitmaps of an approach plate is not the same thing as the ability to activate and fly a GPS approach from an approach database.
A TSO-ed IFR GPS is required to legally fly such approaches as far as I know, and even if it wasn’t, Garmin’s marketing strategy is to require you to purchase a certified unit as the primary navigation source for IFR flight even in experimentals. This probably subsidises the very attractive pricing on their non-certified stuff.
And even if someone else came up with a non-certified alternative and it was legal, and even if that someone was also able to provide reliability and up-to-date approach databases that you could trust not to kill you, why bother, just to save a few thousand dollars/Euros? The cost of a GTN625 is not that unreasonable in the context of a full IFR capable homebuilt, which will probably be a 100k project.
You do not need a certified suite to fly GPS approaches in an ‘experimental’. You can use the GTN 255 radio and connect it to the G3X with RS232 interface – no ARINC needed. The combination of the Garmin G3x with built-in GPS/WAAS and the GTN radio will provide full IFR capability in the panel – including VOR, ILS and Glide Slope indicators.
Presume you mean GNC255? That would just be connecting a certified nav/com radio to the G3X and using the G3X as a PFD/CDI for ILS approaches? It doesn’t give you RNAV GPS approach capability.
