Upgrade went well

[wood_fly]

I bought this airplane with 1 functioning COM (and an Attitude indicator, compass and turn coordinator) Priced accordingly and it was a good deal for both buyer and seller. As you can see from the original panel, while it had been upgraded from the factory, it had been a minute (I'm hearing Bowling for Soup, "1985"). Running down removal:

1. ADF indicator and radio - not many left and I'm too old to be listening to the ball game crossing the country (used to do that in the Hawkers)

2. 3M Stormscope. Still works. But I reserve my convective activity for the jets - not my single piston

3. HSI- sick and needed replacing, as well as the gyro switch next tot eh radar altimeter.

4. KNS-80 RNAV - never lit up

5. Argus 3000 moving map - also dark from the get go, but must have been pretty amazing in it's time

6. NorthStar M1 Loran - had a station here on the west coast but I think that was decommissioned as I was getting licensed in the late 80's. Google says 2010 but that seems WAY late

7. Radar altimeter - this sucker was HEAVY with a 36v transformer in the back, took a lot of power to bounce signal off the ground and I'm not doing terrain mapping.

8. Look left of the throttle, that's the vac gauge and the stby system. Now look straight up to two buttons that say "Play" and "Rec". Under the dash we found an 80's phone recording system! Designed to record your phone calls, not tie wired under the dash to record clearances. OMG.

Sum total of all things removed: 44#!

Replaced with:

1. G5 kit: 1 ADI, 1 HSI, TAT probe. Battery backup - good deal

2. Digital transponder. Picked up free as it's not ADS-B but it's a far cry newer than what I had

3. GNS530w. Nice touch. Watched the youtube vids and read the manual. Feeds the G5's just fine

4. GAD 29D so it can talk to the autopilot (and I had to keep the old ATT system/vac for that). No, it's not as fancy as a -500, but it does what I need and I seldom use it. Have fancy at work and like to hand fly.

Total all in (including paying A&P buddy and IA to make it legal): $18k. And now I have an IFR machine. Eventually I'll add a backup to the NAV system.

Oh, and the yokes are currently in Hector's hands with a sample of that red carpet for the magic two-tone upgrade. I'll post those when they come back. Pretty happy!!

[McMooney]

thinking i would've kept the loran, just to say i had one 8)

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, wood_fly said:

Argus 3000 moving map - also dark from the get go, but must have been pretty amazing in it's time

6. NorthStar M1 Loran - had a station here on the west coast but I think that was decommissioned as I was getting licensed in the late 80's. Google says 2010 but that seems WAY late

Loran was still running strong in the 90's.

I had an Argus 3000 and an Apollo Flybuddy Loran installed in May 1992 in a 1981 Cessna 172RG. It was pretty amazing for its time. 

When I traded that airplane in on my first Mooney, a 1983 231 in 1993 I had them take the Argus and the Apollo and move it over to the Mooney. I got my IFR rating in that airplane. It was the first time that DPE had ever seen an Argus and he was intrigued by it. He took out a disposable camera and took a picture of it when I was flying an approach. That was the beginning of moving maps in General Aviation. 

In 1996 when I traded in the 231 in on a 1996 Bravo I asked Mooney to move to Argus over to the Bravo. They sold my 231 so fast that they upgraded me to a Argus 5000 and interfaced it to the ADF which was nice. 

[donkaye, MCFI]

34 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

When I traded that airplane in on my first Mooney, a 1983 231 in 1993 I had them take the Argus and the Apollo and move it over to the Mooney. I got my IFR rating in that airplane. It was the first time that DPE had ever seen an Argus and he was intrigued by it. He took out a disposable camera and took a picture of it when I was flying an approach. That was the beginning of moving maps in General Aviation. 

You probably remember that Garmin came out with the GPS 90 before any other moving map.  That was the first map in the cockpit albeit a portable that I used when ferrying Mooneys in the early 90s.  What a difference in situational awareness, although you needed a magnifying glass to see the waypoints.

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, McMooney said:

thinking i would've kept the loran, just to say i had one 8)

I have one in the avionics museum in the hangar.

[LANCECASPER]

3 minutes ago, donkaye, MCFI said:

You probably remember that Garmin came out with the GPS 90 before any other moving map.  That was the first map in the cockpit albeit a portable that I used when ferrying Mooneys in the early 90s.  What a difference in situational awareness, although you needed a magnifying glass to see the waypoints.

A friend of mine who went with me to Oshkosh in 1995 bought a GPS 90 and played with it on the way back to TX, for it's time it was pretty amazing to have handheld that was so capable. Advancements were made almost every year in panel avionics and portables.

[N201MKTurbo]

It was like Oshkosh ‘88 I bought a KLN88 on special. I installed it a week later when it arrived. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! I could fly direct to any waypoint imaginable and had a CDI and DME reading. I was hot stuff. That was back when I was flying about 500 hours a year.

[amillet]

My 1st Mooney was N201XG with a Northstar M1 coupled to a Century IIB. I was amazed on my first cross country from WA to CA that the auto pilot flew the entire flight plan.

[wood_fly]

...and that's why I wanted to post this more than anything is I KNEW it would ferment a memory or two. KLN88 - I remember that one too! Such a cool place to hang out!