panel upgrades for m20K

[goodyFAB]

I am starting the process of looking for a shop to perform some avionics upgrades for my aging panel. I am quickly learning that is easier said than done. Originally I wanted to explore the Dynon stuff but I haven't even been able to get a return phone call or email from the shop who Dynon recommended. I also don't think its wise to buy Dynon and hope the autopilot get approved.

I have been thinking long and hard about this upgrade and the budget. I've settled on a Garmin nav/comm/mfd, a couple gi275's to relieve the vacuum system, transponder and a new audio panel. I plan on keeping the old century auto pilot until the day comes that it must be replaced. This will give me some time to fly the plane, and be ready for the next round (that's when ill plan to do the autopilot and upgrade the engine monitors. I want to buy equipment that will supported for the future. 

This brings me to my question for MS, does anyone have any recommendations on avionics shops familiar with Mooneys on the east coast ? im in southern CT. I am not opposed to flying to a good shop but I also think it may make sense to support a local shop when the "issues" arise. It seems more than a few people fly to Florida for avionics. I am not 100% opposed to this, I just wonder how much sense that makes should you have problems with the equipment, what kind of support will you receive when the shop I bring it to didn't install it. 

anyone have experience in doing this recently ? 

what is a reasonable amount of time to lay the plane up for an upgrade like I mentioned ?

I want to avoid having my plane laid up for a long time or a bad experience. 

I appreciate any input 

 

 

 

 

[PeteMc]

I'd give Mike Ionata at LV Avionics a call (610-264-1430) and discuss your project with him.  He's located at Allentown, PA (KABE) and that can be a bit of an issue to commute to/from CT, but I'm betting you can find a ride with someone that is headed to ABE (that might be wondering if you're heading to ABE in the future) that could give you a lift.

And he may give you some grief about working in a "small" Mooney, but his bark is worse than his bite.   

As for what you're putting in, I'm very happy with my GI275, which is really my Backup AI.  My PFD is an Aspen Pro Max, which I'm also very happy with and have had no issues.  For both the 275 and Aspen you'll hear all sorts of terror stories, but I know lots of people like myself that have had no issues. 

For the transponder, if it's in the budget, I think the GTX345 is the front-runner right now.  And if you do a lot of flying into Canada, you might want to go with the Diversity version of the GTX.  Not required now and may be pushed back again, but at some point they're probably going to start requiring it, so easier and cheaper in the long run with the installation to just have it all done at once.

 

[jlunseth]

Don’t have a shop for you, I am in Minnesota. Mine is good and they keep to schedule, although this last time they got COVID so that really slowed the project down. Not their fault. In the past two years I have put in a GTN750, replaced a KT74 with the 345 so I could get traffic on the panel, and installed dual reversionary 275’s. However, with the system failures we have been seeing her on the site with all electronics, I did not ditch the vacuum, in fact, I installed a new pump and hooked it to a standby AI, not fancy, but it will keep the plane upright. One of the failures was a 275 system that the pilot thought was dual reversionary and it was not, he got a red x screen on the ADI, the Flight Aware log looks really bad, may have entered a spiral before getting himself out of it. Not sure what the Rocket’s alternator is, the problem in my 231 is a single alternator and if that goes, and it has, then there is no power. The 275 manual warns that backup battery life is quite a bit shorter in cold temps, and I live in MN.

The display of traffic through the 345 to the 750 is disappointing. I get much better traffic with a Stratus 2 and Foreflight on my iPad. Compared to the iPad, the 345->750 misses targets and also does not give me a good handle on distance to target on the map page, have to go the the traffic page for that, and then I am out of the map page. Not great when flying approaches. I send the approach plate to the map page on Foreflight and get both the plate and very good target resolution for traffic. I rely much more on Foreflight for traffic and basically ignore what displays on the 750. The 275s are nifty looking and probably I saved myself some future cost in overhauling the old King HSI, but the King was easier to use. I am fine with the system as it is, but probably should have stopped at just installing one 275 as a backup AI, with all its other information.

I am not where I can access my emails with my avionics shop for the install of the dual 275s but will be later and will let you know what the intended schedule was. They would have made it I am sure, but for COVID, they always have and excellent work. Modern Avionics, now AV8, at Flying Cloud.

[N231BN]

Don’t have a shop for you, I am in Minnesota. Mine is good and they keep to schedule, although this last time they got COVID so that really slowed the project down. Not their fault. In the past two years I have put in a GTN750, replaced a KT74 with the 345 so I could get traffic on the panel, and installed dual reversionary 275’s. However, with the system failures we have been seeing her on the site with all electronics, I did not ditch the vacuum, in fact, I installed a new pump and hooked it to a standby AI, not fancy, but it will keep the plane upright. One of the failures was a 275 system that the pilot thought was dual reversionary and it was not, he got a red x screen on the ADI, the Flight Aware log looks really bad, may have entered a spiral before getting himself out of it. Not sure what the Rocket’s alternator is, the problem in my 231 is a single alternator and if that goes, and it has, then there is no power. The 275 manual warns that backup battery life is quite a bit shorter in cold temps, and I live in MN.
The display of traffic through the 345 to the 750 is disappointing. I get much better traffic with a Stratus 2 and Foreflight on my iPad. Compared to the iPad, the 345->750 misses targets and also does not give me a good handle on distance to target on the map page, have to go the the traffic page for that, and then I am out of the map page. Not great when flying approaches. I send the approach plate to the map page on Foreflight and get both the plate and very good target resolution for traffic. I rely much more on Foreflight for traffic and basically ignore what displays on the 750. The 275s are nifty looking and probably I saved myself some future cost in overhauling the old King HSI, but the King was easier to use. I am fine with the system as it is, but probably should have stopped at just installing one 275 as a backup AI, with all its other information.
I am not where I can access my emails with my avionics shop for the install of the dual 275s but will be later and will let you know what the intended schedule was. They would have made it I am sure, but for COVID, they always have and excellent work. Modern Avionics, now AV8, at Flying Cloud.

On the traffic page of the 750, you can change the altitude filter to "unrestricted" if you want to see everything.

[jlunseth]

Thanks, I have played with the traffic settings, but it is not the commercial airliners at 25k+ that I am concerned about. Compared to the Stratus and Foreflight, the 750 and 345 miss targets at or near my altitude, and it is much easier from the Foreflight display to determine distance, course and altitude threat. I just get a much clearer picture than on the 750. And then, of course, the 750 feels obligated to interrupt the nav screen with a traffic warning when I am on final at one of our parallels at Flying Cloud, and there is an aircraft on the other parallel. So in the middle of landing I need to either clear the warning or ignore. I hate to disable the warnings entirely, but you would think Garmin could come up with a better way of displaying the warning than to block the nav screen. The Foreflight display is just much better and that is the one I rely on. I am thinking maybe I should just take traffic off of the nav display on the 657.

[N231BN]

There must be a configuration error then, there is no reason they shouldn't display the same traffic. I have been very happy with the 750/345 combo in my Baron.

@goodyFAB I will be installing a pair of GI-275s and interfacing them to a Century III autopilot soon, I can let you know appoximately how many hours it takes. You don't say which autopilot you have but a Century III with a -2 or -3 radio coupler requires both GI-275 units to be ADAHRS + AP. It also requires two Deklin AIU-900A interface boxes which adds to the cost as well.

I have been a fan of PS Engineering in the past but I have been impressed with the GMA 350c interfaced to a GTN 750. I find Garmin Telligence to be a very useful feature. good luck with the project.

[PT20J]

I don’t see why you wouldn’t see all the targets from the GTX 345. You can Bluetooth pair the GTX with the iPad and get the GTX ADS-B traffic displayed on ForeFlight. You should receive all the ADS-B traffic from other aircraft as well as TIS-B traffic uplinked from the ground for non-ADS-B equipped aircraft. If you tap on a target, ForeFlight will display the source. 

The GTX should be sending all traffic to the GTN and iPad. Filtering is done at the display device. For instance, the GTN allows normal, above, below, and unrestricted filters. ForeFlight only allows filtering distant targets.

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[PeteMc]

On 12/29/2022 at 8:12 AM, jlunseth said:

of course, the 750 feels obligated to interrupt the nav screen with a traffic warning when I am on final at one of our parallels at Flying Cloud, and there is an aircraft on the other parallel

The GTN does some filtering when it knows it's near an airport, but I too get that occasional alert even from someone waiting on the ground to depart.  But I've noticed that if I select the Visual on the GTN it seems to give less alerts.  Haven't asked Garmin if that's actually changing how the GTN looks at potential traffic or if maybe there was a change in one of the updates since I first got the unit.  But since I've started selecting the Visual as a SOP on VFR/Visual arrivals I haven't noticed any alerts for other traffic in the pattern or waiting for departure.

.

[jlunseth]

The anticipated time to install the dual reversionary 275's in my aircraft was two weeks. One 275 was already in the plane, it was a 275 ADI that had been installed as a backup, so the existing King vacuum AI got removed and the 275 was installed in its place. The 275 ADI I already had in the plane had been intentionally purchased in the version that could act as the primary ADI in place of the King AI, it just wasn't being used that way at first. When I got it, I was anticipating putting a second 275 HSI in, in the dual reversionary install and that is what was done. The second 275 was installed in place of the King HSI (256). The 345 had already been installed and a GTN750 Xi was installed previously also, so they were only involved in the dual reversionary install in the sense that the 275s had to be connected to them. There was a slight variation from normal, my aircraft has an Icarus SAM GPSS and I wanted to keep it, so the 275 system was wired to work with that. I also had a backup, plain, ordinary vacuum AI installed in the TC hole. 

However, the backorder time for the new 275 was 16 weeks. That was back in the very end of April 2022 so it may have changed, but you should find out. It was delivered in August, so about 16 weeks.

The 275s are nifty but they do take some getting used to. I went up a few weekends and flew practice VFR approaches, all types, to see how the 275s were going to work with the AP and there were definitely some differences. The 275 manual is not all that helpful.

 

PS it did not turn out to be two weeks but that was because the shop got COVID in the middle of the job. 

Edited December 30, 2022 by jlunseth