toto

If I remember correctly, the UPS-AT navigator was superior to the GNS radios back in the day, in significant part because the UPS navigator had airway support and the Garmins didn’t. Garmin bought the UPS-AT business with no real intention of developing the product - they wanted to push customers to the 430/530, so the 480 was doomed the moment the sale went through. The 480 ended up being the first Garmin navigator with WAAS support, I guess because it wasn’t Garmin tech

+1 for Juan Browne I like his videos, and I don’t think he tries to be sensationalist. He does speculate as to the cause of an accident, but it’s educated speculation, and never reckless.

An owned aircraft policy can absolutely be written with conditions covering these situations. You can write a policy that says “Pilot X, no solo flight until after completing 10 hours dual with instructor” etc. So the new pilot is a named insured on the policy, the policy covers the transition training, and the policy covers solo flight after the minimum hours requirement is met. If concerned about the cost, working with a broker like Parker can be very helpful. Once you’ve met certain experience thresholds, your broker can rewrite or rebid a policy based on current experience and you won’t need to continue paying the “newbie” rate for an extended period.

I wrote a big long thoughtful response on this thread, but I decided I wasn't adding anything really original, so I'm just going to post a video from the Ruthless Aviator Girl channel instead.

I'm not sure how you're doing it, but fwiw when I get in the plane my iPad connects automatically to my GTX, and I always have to manually connect to the G3X (which has the EIS). Once I've done that, it stays connected and everything works for the whole flight, but my iPad won't automatically connect to two devices.

Parker will know for sure, but I can't imagine that 200 hours TT with 50 RG is uninsurable.

Ah, okay

I can’t access MS using the website from my phone… error in my selected dark theme. [[Template core/front/global/mobileNavBar is throwing an error. This theme may be out of date. Run the support tool in the AdminCP to restore the default theme.]]

It could absolutely be done with software, and above a certain altitude there's no particular need for DME. DME becomes critical if you only have one VOR in range, for obvious reasons

For whatever it’s worth, I’ve had a GFC500 installed in an a/c that did not come with a factory autopilot, and another GFC500 installed in an aircraft that did come with a factory autopilot, and install times were comparable. As @EricJ said above, you’ll save a little time that the shop would have had to spend ripping out the old AP, and that’s only to your benefit. I don’t have the sense that much is reused from the factory, and every install is essentially a custom install, so you should be fine. My advice would be to get a couple of quotes from avionics shops that have done GFC500 installs in Mooneys, and make sure they know there’s no AP in there now. I suspect it’s a total non-issue.

Interesting. Sounds like a fancy new INS.

RNAV feels like something that could be done with a software enhancement to any modern navigator (any modern navigator that accepts terrestrial nav sources). I have no idea what the certification path would look like, but it would surprise me if Garmin and Avidyne aren't already working on something like this, given recent concerns about the vulnerability of satellite-based navigation signals to jamming/spoofing attacks. I'm interested in the future direction of eLORAN, but obviously eLORAN would require new hardware, while a MON-based RNAV system could be built using existing VOR receivers.

Ha - me too. "Here's a VOR we know about ... and .... we'll just create our own little pseudo-VOR 100 miles away, then navigate direct to that" mind -> blown

I didn't mean to imply that you needed a panel, just that you could fly IFR with a supplemental VFR GPS safely and legally.

We even had IFR-certified area navigation before GPS You could go direct with LORAN or with VOR-based RNAV.

Unfortunately I suspect the cause of many of those crashes is going to be speculative / undetermined.

Absolutely. The fuel situation was confusing. If he really had 90 minutes of fuel, my advice would have been to climb above the clouds and take five minutes to get his head straight and come up with a plan. Bouncing around in IMC when you’re seriously task saturated has a tendency to get worse and worse as fatigue sets in. If he had five minutes of straight and level flight, he could retrieve an iPad charger from a bag, or figure out an ILS to fly, or something. A VOR circling approach in the soup isn’t a great recipe for success with a non-proficient pilot. Finding VMC somewhere and flying to it - or at least finding high ceilings somewhere that would allow a visual approach after an IMC descent - is what I’d want for him.

Way back in the day, many of us made do without an IFR GPS in the panel, and it mostly worked fine. I had the very first Garmin panel mount GPS (the GPS-100) which was VFR only, and controllers were very accommodating.. you could put “VFR GPS on board” in the notes field of your IFR flight plan, and controllers would routinely ask what was the “heading” to your destination. You would give them the magnetic course from your GPS, and get a “cleared to XYZ via radar vectors, fly heading 123” which might be to a place hundreds of miles away. You’re legally flying a vector on a defined heading, and using your VFR GPS just as a reference. Anyway, it’s possible to do this sort of thing with a VFR GPS, but you need to be very competent and current with the terrestrial nav sources and procedures. I honestly don’t understand why anyone would plan to do an RNAV approach if they aren’t proficient with their certified GPS. I have flown with instrument rated pilots who spend 95% of their time staring at an iPad in their lap and ignoring the certified panel mount navigator, and I always try to encourage them to answer questions using the certified unit. It’s often a GNS navigator, not very pretty to look at, but very capable. Getting familiar with the buttonology when things are quiet and calm will make you much more capable of solving problems when the sh*t hits the fan.

I’ve been following that thread, but this seemed like a very different flight - the controller in the other thread had commentary about discussing the use of an iPad with his supervisor and “we’re pretty sure that’s not legal” etc. This controller was a bit more chill, and offered the alternative of a VOR approach. Plus this one had the strange bingo fuel situation after confirming 90 minutes reserve. Idk

The video just kind of ended during the VOR approach … is everyone safe and sound?

For whatever it's worth, I had a loose inspection panel that was rubbing against a control rod and causing a GFC500 disconnect on every flight. After tightening the inspection panel, it has never happened again. The avionics shop looked at it and they were a little bit dubious about my theory on the cause, but it went from disconnecting at least once on every flight to never disconnecting on any flight.

Yes - https://mooneyspace.com/topic/49085-garmin-gfc-500-ad/?do=findComment&comment=866067

I was following the broker thread, so I have 30 emails with little fragments of the posts but it looks like the whole thread has been deleted? What was the exciting conclusion? I gather that the transponder was remote, so there wasn’t actually something to see in the photo? Maybe some other things?

That was mostly tongue-in-cheek. Electroair has a D3000 replacement that’s about $5k plus installation today, and I wouldn’t expect a dual mag solution from Champion to be less than that (especially if installation cost is significantly reduced).

One IRAN for my D3000 cost $3k, so if they want to make a slide in dual mag replacement, it would save me 75% over the TBO