CCAS

Thanks Rick - I think the PFD does take some time getting used to so I'm planning to have a similar learning curve. I'm counting on seeing what flows make sense once I get a few dozen hours or so on the glass.

I started off in the design process with the control unit located on the bottom of the stack. But after sitting in the airplane and going through some chair flying of manipulating the AP controls it actually seemed to work better for me to have it up high. Totally subjective of course. You mentioned your hand resting on the throttle. A fair bit of my flying is over the Rockies and across the Front Range through some frequent rough air....my naturally resting right hand position is often gripping the center post above the mag compass to prevent my head hitting the ceiling.

Thanks Skip - That explains it. Might be handy if the left and right discretes on that switch could activate something handy for us....maybe radio flip/flop on Comm 1 and Comm 2 or something similar. But if it hasn't been done before, it's probably a bridge too far at the moment. John

Has anyone seen a Coolie Hat style trim switch used in place of the Garmin/Cygnet pitch trim switch with a GFC 500 installation in a Mooney? I know the STC calls out the Garmin style switch but I've always thought the coolie hat switch was more natural to use (and would seem to take up less space on the yoke). Cirrus SR20/22 use the coolie hat style switch with GFC 500 so it's not unheard of.

Top two contenders for radio stack arrangment. The panel designer is working on a first markup and there will be several iterations back and forth to refine the design of course.

Baffles me too but there must be a marketing reason behind it. You’re right about the challenges of panel planning. I’m still finalizing the order of my radio stack but one of the reasons I went with the GNX375 was because I wanted another modern WAAS navigator and also wanted to take advantage of an integrated transponder with ADS-B In.

I went round and round with the GI275 EIS decision. Ultimately it came down to two things that were truly individual preference: Other aircraft I'm flying have the GI275 EIS so it's a comfort factor to process data more easily. I also like the placement of a standalone EIS (it'll be roughly where my current JPI 730 is) to make it more natural (for me) to visually catch engine data as I set engine controls and scan navigators.

I'm a week out from dropping off my 1989 J model to start its panel upgrade. The before picture is below; I'll have a separate post in a few weeks in the Classified section for anyone interested in legacy equipment that's being removed. I plan to post updates as the avionics shop makes progress. The project includes GFC500, G500TXi, GI275 backup, GI275 EIS, GTN650Xi, GNX375, GTR205, yoke Aera 760, Carling switches, Cies senders, LHS, and LED nav/strobe. Many thanks to @donkaye @shawnd @Lois @201 RedTail for sharing their panel experiences and providing advice during the planning stage. John

Florian - If you don’t mind a little further drop off location I can definitely recommend Dugosh Aviation at Kerrville (KERV) for your annual. And a couple hundred yards down the ramp is Wolfe Avionics for your Garmin needs. I’ve found both shops do solid work at reasonable rates and staffed by knowledgeable Mooney folks. If you arrive on a weekend I could give you a lift to San Antonio airport to catch your flight home. Feel free to send a PM if you like. John

Having issues with my Garmin GNS WAAS nav data card and previous posts don't seem to help with this one. Background: I bought a second GNS WAAS nav data card (orange label) from Garmin directly back in 2022; my original nav data card is a Jepp card and it works perfectly and always has but I wanted to have a second card to make new uploads more convenient. I have my nav data subscription with Garmin. Issue: Within 6 months of using the new Garmin card, my GNS430W started to not always detect the nav data when powering up. I contacted Garmin and they sent me a replacement card. That card worked fairly well for about 2 years with an ocassional issue loading data but if I rebooted the GNS430W it would work fine. But this past summer I started having consistent issues again specific to that Garmin nav data card: 1. About 40% of the time the GNS430W doesn't recognize a nav database present at all during power up and displays "Aviation Database Not Available" where I'd normally see the database cycle/expiration date. Once the start up is complete, I receive a MSG saying "Aviation database integrity error". 2. About 40% of the time the GNS430W recognizes the correct nav database and expiration date during the power up screeens but after the system fully boots up it still behaves like there's no database and I receive the same MSG saying "Aviation database integrity error". When I select FPL to load waypoints, and highlight the first waypoint to enter data, there isn't the automatic first letter "K" displayed....it's just blank. At that point if I enter a valid airport/waypoint the system doesn't correlate the identifier to a known database point and it asks me if I want to create a User Waypoint. 3. About 20% of the time (but becoming more rare) the card works ok after a new database update. Garmin support has been less than useful so far. I called yesterday and the tech told me to reload my desktop version of Garmin Aviation Database Manager (even though I've been updating that software whenever Garmin released new ones). He then had me reload my card and everything looked fine (like it always does on my computer). He told me next to try the nav card in the airplane and report back. Today I went to the airplane and had the same problems as in items #1 and #2 above. It never recognized a valid database and never loaded data correctly. I called Garmin back and a different tech told me that I needed to have SW version 5.4 loaded in the GNS for the "new cards" to work properly (I have SW version 5.3). He was unwilling to send me a replacement card and suggested I have my avionics shop upload the SW version 5.4 (at whatever labor rate they charge for that). I asked him to elevate this issue to his supervisor and I'm waiting for a call back but not sure if I'll get one. Has anyone else had a similar issue or been told by Garmin that you had to upgrade hardware SW before you could use their nav data cards?

I route my headset cord/power box (Bose) over my handset mic and mic bracket on the pillar; stays very much out of the way. But not sure you have that option without seeing your layout. P.S. I also have a DC One headset and find the cords/power box to be a tangled mess so I use that set as my backup.

@Patrick Horan Hi Patrick - You may be in luck. I've got two of the 880024-009 dials (new in the bag). Send me a PM if you're interested. John Follow up edit: Sold to the OP. Apologies to the others in line.

Easily found the push button switches (searching for Carling Tech AV led me right to it)! PM me if you remember the gunshop you used....I'm just across town at 5C1 so might start with them. Thanks again. John

Perfect! I’ll have a look and bring my avionics shop into the discussion to see what they think.

@Lois Ted - Is the silver button (with blue LED) surround above your throttle your Go Around button? If so, that's about the cleanest looking (and most substantial) TOGA button I've seen for the GFC500. Do you have a part number and supplier? Thanks John