Every pilot and aircraft owner would would love to have a state-of-the-art avionics panel! Even if you fly only VFR, its nice to look at a sexy, EFIS screen with all the features and benefits of today’s avionics but then … there’s the budget! So, when the local avionics shops says”throw that all out and put in a Garmin Stack” … They know that is not an option! Sadly, when the aircraft owner admits to a lack of budget and asks how to best achieve their panel goals on significantly less money, they frequently don’t get the answers or the help they need. Simply stated, that’s what I do!
I recently was approached by a client with a 1983 Cessna 182 with a 1990’s Bendix King stack that would have been great in that vintage. The owner flies a lot and light IFR was common but with displays failing and navcoms unreliable on both the com and nav side, he no longer “trusted” his avionics. He came to me for advice. His primary goals were reliability and ease of use and unlike most of my clients flying legacy aircraft, budget was less of a concern. I would have never suggested a whole new radio stack but I reasoned that new would be most reliable so I priced him up a new avionics package. He already had a good, modern autopilot so without that but including the least expensive new IFR GPS and an ADS-B solution and taking a “conservative” approach, he was looking at about $35,000. Were not talking dual GTN-650’s here. I did this as an exercise to show him the reality of what a new option would cost and then showed him ways we could compromise and I got the package down to about $26,000 using a combination of new and reliable, used avionics. Here’s rub as Mr. Shakespear would have pointed out. When you tell your local avionics shop that you can’t “justify” a $35K upgrade to your $65K airplane, they lose interest and you’re not going to get a lot help from that point on. FYI, my client above was ready to spend the $35K on his 182 based on encouragement from his wife (that’s a surprise also!) but instead he bought a nicely equipped Cessna 210. I guess money was not an object here. If your considering an avionics upgrade, I bet money is an issue in your house and that the wife is not on your side!
Frank Gulla from Florida approached me some time back about an upgrade to his 1981 Piper Turbo Arrow. He had owned the aircraft for over 10 years and had decided that it fit his needs and in anticipation of getting his instrument ticket, approached me for advice on an upgrade to the panel. Frank’s new panel photo is the feature at the top of the article. Here’s Frank’s panel before the upgrade (shown above! 