Ovation3 in 1994?

[Skates97]

16 hours ago, LANCECASPER said:

I prefer an autopilot where the servos don’t have to be changed out every year or two. There are some people on their 3rd and 4th sets of servos on the GFC500. It’s possible that they now have that remedied, but I have heard of a couple of cases where the newest version servos have failed . . . so we’ll see.

I should knock on wood, but I'm 31 months and 430 hours on my GFC500 without any issues. But maybe there is a difference in the forces on the servos in a short body compared to a long body?

[LANCECASPER]

4 hours ago, Skates97 said:

I should knock on wood, but I'm 31 months and 430 hours on my GFC500 without any issues. But maybe there is a difference in the forces on the servos in a short body compared to a long body?

I think a lot has to do with who installed it and it wouldn’t surprise me if you are absolutely right when it comes to the forces on the servos.

At Oshkosh I asked a guy in the Garmin tent right after they introduced both autopilots why they were going to do the GFC600 for the long bodies. He said the 600 uses the same servos as the GFC 700 which is used on the Acclaim and Ovation and these servos are much better suited for high performance airplanes - whatever that means exactly.

Of course they changed their mind a couple years later and didn’t do that.

The GFC500 was not built to the same standard of the GFC600, which is TSO’d.

“Garmin engineers told AOPA Pilot that the beefier GFC 600 servos are sealed and protected against the elements and interference to the same level as those in its Part 25 business jet applications. ”

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2017/july/18/garmin-announces-two-new-autopilots


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[Fly Boomer]

On 3/19/2024 at 8:37 PM, LANCECASPER said:

The GFC500 is still the best choice that’s available for Mooneys on a panel upgrade and I’m confident that they’ll get the servos that are still failing or the bad installations figured out . I just wish Garmin had gone through with what they outlined originally - certification of the GFC600 for long body Mooneys. 

One hopes that the troubles are just bad components, and not some fundamental engineering choice.

[Jeff_S]

On 3/19/2024 at 5:24 PM, LANCECASPER said:

All Ovation 3s have 310hp, a G1000 and a GFC700 autopilot. It was introduced in 2007. 

https://www.flyingmag.com/pilot-reports-pistons-mooney-ovation3/

Except, a few Ovation 3s came out late in 2006 and still had the S-TEC A/P.  I know because mine is one of them.  But it's got the factory-painted Ovation 3 so it was considered as such.  I sure wish I had the GFC700, but the S-TEC still gets me where I'm going.

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, Jeff_S said:

Except, a few Ovation 3s came out late in 2006 and still had the S-TEC A/P.  I know because mine is one of them.  But it's got the factory-painted Ovation 3 so it was considered as such.  I sure wish I had the GFC700, but the S-TEC still gets me where I'm going.

ah thanks for the correction