Best upgrade option, GI 275, G500Txi or G3X?

[fixandflysafe]

Question for the MS brain trust... (and while it's likely already been discussed, I didn't find anything in a forum search)

I am wondering the best upgrade path to recommend for this M20K with the following panel:

GTN 750Xi
KX 165
KFC 150 (replacing with GFC500)
JPI EDM 900 (satisfied with it)
GTX 345

The initial idea was to go with two GI 275, keep the rest of the six pack, and upgrade the autopilot to the GFC 500. Once that money is spent though, there won't be any sense in upgrading to a full glass panel in the future. If this were yours, would you go for the extra costs of cutting the panel and putting in a screen, and if so, G3X or G500? 

Thanks in advance.

[Fly Boomer]

I'll let somebody smarter than me answer your question, but meanwhile, welcome to MooneySpace!

[StevenL757]

First off, I’d suggest getting those headsets off your glareshield and eliminate the risk of scratching your windscreen.  :-)

Second, welcome to the group.  Third - your upgrade options are really based on your mission, future upgradability consideration, your ego, and the size of your wallet.  Personally, I have my Ovation equipped as equal as possible to an airline cockpit, given my flows are similar.  The G500TXi, GI275, and GFC500 (with YD option) are your best options to accomplish your long and short-term goals.  I’d personally speak to your shop of choice, put your final design plans on paper, arrange to have a new panel cut (small dollars in the grand scheme), and your result will be nothing short of extraordinary.  You’ll likely not need to spend any more money on upgrading for a very long time.  The EDM900 and GTX345 should remain, given they’re excellent units, but you probably already know this.  FYI - that unit in the panel is a “straight” GTN750, not a 750Xi.  Garmin does have an upgrade path to trade up a 750 to a 750Xi unit…your shop can help you with this.

Best of luck…let us know your thoughts and timeline as you go through the process.

Steve

[toto]

1 hour ago, fixandflysafe said:

Question for the MS brain trust... (and while it's likely already been discussed, I didn't find anything in a forum search)

I am wondering the best upgrade path to recommend for this M20K with the following panel:

GTN 750Xi
KX 165
KFC 150 (replacing with GFC500)
JPI EDM 900 (satisfied with it)
GTX 345

The initial idea was to go with two GI 275, keep the rest of the six pack, and upgrade the autopilot to the GFC 500. Once that money is spent though, there won't be any sense in upgrading to a full glass panel in the future. If this were yours, would you go for the extra costs of cutting the panel and putting in a screen, and if so, G3X or G500? 

Thanks in advance.

Yeah, this is a topic that we've spilled a lot of ink over. @carusoam can probably come up with the best threads. 

For my money, I'd cut the panel. I have a strong dislike for maintaining legacy analog avionics, and I would *much* rather eat the bigger cost and do it all at once than suffer death by a thousand cuts with maintenance on the old crap.

Look for posts by @PJClark. He had a very similar panel to yours, and ended up with a gorgeous setup using a G3X and GFC, but keeping the JPI.  

Get the G500 if you want to interface with third-party hardware. If you're going all Garmin, the G3X should be plenty. It was born to drive a GFC. 

[jlunseth]

I have the GTN 750 Xi and the dual reversionary 275 installed in my 231. I have always cherished putting in a G500, there are some benefits and some  negatives. A benefit of the g500 is that, as I recall, it includes altitude pre-select. You would be responsible for the power setting, but the G500 would fly you to whatever altitude you chose and then level off. I am pretty sure it would do that with either the KFC150 or the GFC500, obviously you would want to check on compatibility with the 150. You can also install a GAD43e air data computer with the G500 and get information that you do not presently get, such as a real time read on the crosswind and headwind at altitude. The dual 275 is a pretty nifty setup, but the G500 would give you more screen space. There is a lot of information crammed into two small spaces with the 275. I am still getting used to it. The issue for me, though, is durability. We had a report of a “red-x” failure of a dual reversionary 275, it turned out the installation was not dual reversionary. We just recently had Don Kaye’s episode where he lost all power to the instruments because of a loose connection, that thread is recent and you can see more detail there. In my mind the problem is that when you install all these toys and connect them you can never lose sight of the fact that you are creating a new system, and the new system can fail as a whole. You cannot have a single point of failure, apart from the single engine. In the 231 you have a single alternator with a coupler that is a known issue. Failure of the alternator or the coupler is failure of all electrical and therefore all the panel instruments. You cannot rely on the house battery, I had that happen and if I had not put the gear down right away and flown that way to my diversion airport there would not have been enough power to drop the gear at a destination a half hour away. The 275’s have a backup, but the AFMS I received says that in cold temps the 1hr backup time can be 30 minutes. Is that enough time for you to come down from the flight levels, especially if you are, say, over the Rockies, and then fly an instrument approach to a safe landing? I don’t think so. So I have kept my vacuum and a simple vacuum AI.

[MIm20c]

I’d still recommend cutting a new pilot side panel if you decide to go with the dual 275’s…

[FlyingScot]

2 hours ago, fixandflysafe said:

The initial idea was to go with two GI 275, keep the rest of the six pack, and upgrade the autopilot to the GFC 500. Once that money is spent though, there won't be any sense in upgrading to a full glass panel in the future. If this were yours, would you go for the extra costs of cutting the panel and putting in a screen, and if so, G3X or G500? 

I faced the same choice in my O2 and as a contrarian  I put this in: 

And I love it. Yes I have flown glass, and it’s great too, but I love the flexibility, capability, and redundancy of this design. I sure I would have been happy either way, but I love the way this design flies. (BTW - the AI fails over to the redundant AI, not the HSI.)

An old friend once told me when playing golf that the first part of playing well is liking what you see when you look down at the club when you hit the ball. I guess the flying equivalent is the first part of enjoying the flight is liking what you see when you light up the panel.

And I sure like what I see!

Happy to discuss it with you if it helps -

[PT20J]

For me, I wanted to replace the legacy stuff and only tear up the panel once. I wanted the best integration of equipment for both operational and failure mode considerations. Garmin has several different design teams that make different equipment at different times for different markets. You need to fully understand what you are getting when you mix and match because not every piece of Garmin equipment plays well with every other piece. I went with the G3X, G5, GFC 500 because these have everything I needed and they were all designed by the same Garmin engineering team (Team X) to work well together.

The G500TXi is a newer and slightly nicer instrument than the G3X. The GI 275 is nicer than the G5. But there are advantages to the G3X, G5, GFC 500 combination. First of all, either the G3X or the G5 will drive the GFC 500 so if the G3X or its ADAHRS fails, you still have an autopilot. The G500TXi will not drive the GFC 500 so if your backup instrument (G5 or GI 275) fails, you lose the autopilot. The G5 also has a much longer battery life as a backup instrument than the GI 275. Also, the G3X, G5 and GFC 500 all use CANBUS which greatly simplifies wiring. 

Skip

[fixandflysafe]

Many thanks to all of you who took time to contribute these thoughts. The following points stand out from the discussion:

• Cutting a new pilot side panel is not as major as it might sound and is easily worth it for an upgrade like this.
• The GFC 500 is the undisputed, best autopilot option. Indeed, it's the main driver for this project.
• Good point from @PT20J on having a backup driver for the autopilot when using G3X but not when using G500!
• @jlunseth, I believe GFC altitude preselect would work with the 750 and a G5, even without the G500. And the GAD 13 can get real time wind data onto the CAN bus in a G5/G3X setup. Good thoughts on backup capabilities.

@FlyingScot, with four GI-275's, you spent more AMU than if you had gone with a 10" G3X, right? Definitely the best "six pack" panel anyone is going to have!

Does anyone have a concern that the G3X is soon to be superseded by a newer product? The Touch series is almost 9 years old now and the graphic display isn't nearly as are good as the G500. It seems like a G3X"i" sort of product could easily be announced within a year. There's nothing like the "latest and greatest" to make yesterday's otherwise amazing product suddenly seem a bit less impressive.

[PT20J]

3 minutes ago, fixandflysafe said:

Does anyone have a concern that the G3X is soon to be superseded by a newer product? The Touch series is almost 9 years old now and the graphic display isn't nearly as are good as the G500. It seems like a G3X"i" sort of product could easily be announced within a year. There's nothing like the "latest and greatest" to make yesterday's otherwise amazing product suddenly seem a bit less impressive.

There is always new stuff coming out and it's impossible to predict. Personally, I like things that have been out for a while because of the old saying, "The pioneers get the arrows." I'm always happy to have the early adopters work out the bugs for me. I think right now, Garmin is selling a bunch of G3X and its sales are pretty far ahead of the competition for certified equipment. Given the cost to certify stuff, I doubt they will be in a hurry to make changes until it looks like either there is a competitive risk or component supply looks to become problematic. Since there is a lot of competition in the experimental market and since the G3X came from that market, I would follow that market to get the best idea what Garmin may (or may not) be planning.

Skip

[WaynePierce]

I'm paying as I go on a limited budget... First I put in an Avidyne IFD 550, Lynx 9000 and new Avidyne audio panel. I just had 2 GI 275s installed and only removed the AI and HSI, I kept the airspeed and turn coordinator and one HSI to go with my old GNS 430W. My plans for the next move is in the works replacing my KAP 150 with a GFC 500. I'm retired so I do what I can when I can and it's getting harder :-) Those yearly bonus checks were very nice...

[RoundTwo]

23 minutes ago, WaynePierce said:

I'm retired so I do what I can when I can and it's getting harder :-) Those yearly bonus checks were very nice...

Ain’t that the truth. Market slide hasn’t helped either.

[WaynePierce]

4 minutes ago, RoundTwo said:

Ain’t that the truth. Market slide hasn’t helped either.

People ask us if we're going to sell our house and move, my pat answer is we're waiting on the market to crash. Retirement appears to be following my typical pattern.

[RoundTwo]

7 minutes ago, WaynePierce said:

People ask us if we're going to sell our house and move, my pat answer is we're waiting on the market to crash. Retirement appears to be following my typical pattern.

I retired June of ‘20 and I felt pretty good about that decision then.

[DCarlton]

2 hours ago, RoundTwo said:

I retired June of ‘20 and I felt pretty good about that decision then.

I retired in Dec '20 and told my wife as long as we don't have rampant inflation like we did back in the '70s we'd be fine...  Even with inflation and the market dump, I still can't fathom working in the same job I was doing for two more years.  Heck I even cleaned the belly of my Mooney this week; can't beat having more time.  At least things seem to be stabilizing the last couple of weeks.  

[toto]

3 hours ago, fixandflysafe said:

Does anyone have a concern that the G3X is soon to be superseded by a newer product? The Touch series is almost 9 years old now and the graphic display isn't nearly as are good as the G500.

The G3X Touch was announced for certified aircraft in 2019. It would be nice if they had announced significant upgrades at the same time, but I think the general expectation is that Garmin will support a unit for 20 years after introduction. 

I haven’t ever really understood the display differences between the G3X and the G500. People always say the G500 is better, but the specs are identical. 

[PT20J]

23 minutes ago, toto said:

The G3X Touch was announced for certified aircraft in 2019. It would be nice if they had announced significant upgrades at the same time, but I think the general expectation is that Garmin will support a unit for 20 years after introduction. 

I haven’t ever really understood the display differences between the G3X and the G500. People always say the G500 is better, but the specs are identical. 

I have not looked at them side by side, but the issue might be brightness. I keep the G3X at 100% and that is just barely bright enough at some sun angles.

[rbp]

On 11/21/2022 at 6:23 PM, toto said:

Get the G500 if you want to interface with third-party hardware.

It depends on what third-party hardware you mean. I have a stormscope and I have a skywatch, both integrated with my GTN750txi + G3X

[rbp]

I looked at the G3X versus the G500, and went with the former. The resolution is higher on the G500 and the processor is faster, but it is much pricier.

Have been flying the G3X now for a year, and its spectacular

[toto]

3 hours ago, rbp said:

The resolution is higher on the G500

Not according to Garmin. The resolution for each 10.6” unit is identical..

https://mooneyspace.com/topic/29441-g3x-touch-certified/?do=findComment&comment=494091

Do you have details on the CPU?

[toto]

4 hours ago, rbp said:

It depends on what third-party hardware you mean. I have a stormscope and I have a skywatch, both integrated with my GTN750txi + G3X

The two things that come immediately to mind are third-party autopilots (which would not apply to OP) and datalink devices. Third party autopilots require a GAD43e and have limited functionality, and datalink I think basically doesn't work unless the source device is a Garmin brand. 

(I'm far from an expert on these interfaces, so happy to be corrected on the interoperability front.)