toto

Checked the Deltahawk website… my numbers are old, and it’s worse than I thought.. 110k for the package, without installation.

The last price estimate I saw (about a year ago) was 90k installed for a certified aircraft. That’s a lot of money, but it’s not outside the realm of reasonable for a brand-new engine.. and of course you could sell your existing engine to recoup part of it.

Yeah I definitely wanted it I entered 11 times, and spent a lot of the year wondering whether I would be able to fit the Icon in the back of my hangar with the wings folded.

The Icon A5 was used, so probably 200k retail value. The 100k cash option was half that, and they’re tracking the same ratio for 2025 with 100k/50k. You either take the big prize or you take half the big prize in cash. It’s a little strange tbh, since the promotion is either driving subscription revenue adequate to cover the cost of the prizes or it’s not. If the promotion isn’t driving enough revenue then they shouldn’t continue for a second year. But cutting the prize in half definitely makes it less interesting for at least some of us, which presumably means fewer subscriptions and less revenue. I never understood how on earth King Schools and Sportys could give out a free new airplane every year, but I assume they stopped doing it when it stopped being profitable.

I subscribe to several of these magazines, all former Belvoir publications like Aviation Consumer. I’m not sure why they decided to start printing Flying on cardstock, but the magazine is strange now. They skipped a whole print run for the Belvoir set, saying instead that they would send everyone a magazine they didn’t want and didn’t ask for - an “Ultimate” issue of Flying that came wrapped in plastic and I never opened. They must be pretty confident that Flying is the future of the business, and the key revenue driver. I’ve always been very happy with Belvoir, but I let my Flying subscription lapse a long time ago, and haven’t seen any compelling reason to renew.

This year’s contest is pretty “meh” compared to last year. For 2024, they had a picture of an Icon A5, and if you won, you had your choice of an Icon, a Tecnam, or a pile of cash. Their communication and messaging was abysmal, but apparently they named the winner at Sun N Fun. Anyway - for 2025, the grand prize is $100k toward the purchase of an aircraft listed in the Flying airplane classifieds. So you pick any plane they have listed for sale, and they give you $100k towards that purchase. They also have a $50k cash option, in addition to smaller monthly prizes. I was excited about winning my Icon A5, and spent some time daydreaming about that win. It’s harder to daydream about winning a discount on a used aircraft purchase. https://www.flyingmag.com/news/flying-magazine-announces-2025-ultimate-flying-giveaway/ https://www.flyingmag.com/2025-ultimate-flying-giveaway-official-rules/

Right - we’re just reaching the effective date of the AD that we discussed last year. The required software versions are listed in the AD. I went back and looked, and my software revision is already way ahead of the required minimum, so hopefully this is true for others as well. Ref: (g) Required Action Within 12 months after the effective date of this AD, update the Garmin GFC 500 Autopilot System software applicable to your airplane to a version that is not 8.01 or earlier for the G5, not version 9.01 or earlier for the G3X Touch, and not version 2.59 or earlier for the GI 275.

It's hard to tell sometimes what's happening with a checklist in YT videos. The PIC here clearly verbalized (something) during preparation for takeoff, but it's not clear whether there was a checklist somewhere that she was reading or whether this was just a memorized set of steps. I don't see an iPad or any sort of portable electronic checklist, and I don't see a checklist function on the MFD. (I've never seen this channel before, so maybe this is SoP.) This doesn't sound like what would be printed on a factory placard. The Piper door latch is annoying as they discovered - if the top pops open, you have to reset it manually and that can be hard to do in flight. But if closed correctly in the first place, it shouldn't pop open. Maybe they'll have a follow up video. I definitely struggle with the "EMERGENCY" title of the video. A door popping open is distracting, but the wings haven't fallen off the plane.

This is the way. I keep my iPad mini in a folio case, either in my lap or on the floor. I usually have the EIS page open just in case the LCD craps out and I lose engine indications. Using the iPad only once in a while means the battery will last for a full flight, and I don’t have to have cables strung across the cockpit for charging. I have a G3X+GTN, not a G1000 - so I’m not sure what the flight data situation is with the G1000. But having the iPad in the closed folio still captures all of the flight data recordings, so I have real-time EIS and flight parameters available at home for later review. I use this all the time.. No need to pull SD cards - just keep the iPad in my lap and I’ve got flight data logging plus an EIS backup.

https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/403643

Very nice analysis. I went with G5 over GI-275 even though the latter was available, but it's primarily because I prefer the look of the square gauges over the round gauges. The round gauges make all the sense in the world for a retrofit install where they're replacing a legacy round gauge, but if you're cutting a new panel anyway, the square gauges just look better to my eye.

After the good discussion we had on the Eagle accident at KOJC, I've changed my landing behavior - I used to trim nose up throughout the landing maneuver, touching down with pretty significant trim set. Since the Eagle accident, I now put in just enough nose-up trim to reduce the control forces to a reasonable level, and I'm much more dependent on elbow grease than I used to be. As much as I try to be sure that I never miss resetting trim in my checklist, I don't want a one-time mistake to be fatal with an immediate departure stall on takeoff. (I assume this is a more pronounced problem on a long body than on a mid, but still.)

Nah, lots of us have a G3X Touch (Certified) and a GFC500 (Certified). Both are certified versions of the Garmin experimental products.

I’ve been watching these for a long time too. I rent a TD2 at a local flight school for $25/hour but I would love to have a BATD at home. Just can’t bring myself to spend 8+ grand on one

I usually figure that you’ll get the cost of the avionics back in resale, less the installation. So if the hardware is 50k and the total invoice with installation is 80k, you’ll get 50k out of it. That’s assuming your radios are still “current” .. you won’t get retail value out of a GNS if you sell the plane today, but you’d get the value out of a GTN. (That’s just my gut feel - I have no data to back it up.)

Yeah that seems to be the one thing he hasn’t done - the airplane is 400smoh.

Yeah, it's just the dumping piles of money into the airplane right before selling it that I don't understand - it's like putting a new kitchen in your house and selling it a month later

There must be a story here. Hard to see the logic in dumping 150 AMUs into upgrades and then selling it immediately after. If they were actually trying to build a "better than new" J model a la @Rmag, you'd think they would go ahead and do the paint.

Oh I agree - I wouldn’t buy a GPU charger thing just for the db updates, but I do think if I had a power supply I would probably be able to use it for more hangar flying than I currently do.

Honestly, the gearhead in me really wants to make a DIY ground power unit, but I hate the idea of frying my very expensive electronics because I screwed up the GPU project (I should mention that I think this DIY video came from a MSer but I can’t remember who.)

The White Lightning is about 50% more expensive.. do you know what advantages the WL has for the extra cost?

I’ve been looking at them today. With the crazy cost of batteries these days, it’s only about half that for a pseudo-GPU. Also looking at this, a little bit cheaper - not sure whether the WL is significantly better: https://www.aircraftspruce.com/pages/el/jumpercablesplugs_power/portPowerCharger24ces.php

That makes sense, thank you. I also liked @Rick Junkin’s suggestion in the other thread that you could wait until after a flight and then let the update run while you’re putting the plane away etc. That seems much less disruptive than doing it before the flight.

Thank you. I think the approach where you load nav data every 28 days and update the base maps only once in a while makes sense. I’ve never found much use for the raster charts. Unfortunately a Battery Minder won’t work for me, as the county prohibits keeping anything plugged into any outlet when the hangar owner is not physically present.

Is there a trick to the 5-minute update for the G3X? I started another thread about the slow update speed earlier today, but I just came across your post here and I'm curious what you're doing that takes so much less than what I'm doing Ref: https://mooneyspace.com/topic/49002-g3x-touch-slow-db-updates-from-sd-card/