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Thoughts and ramblings on Radios
King -
Late last Century (70's, 80's, early 90's) these radios were the best - the usual recommendation was that selling your King equipped airplane was easy, if you had other's avionics, you had to "sell" those too. However, King has changed hands (several times I believe) and seemed to lose their edge. Even their latest GPS uses the same display technology as Garmin. I do still have a King rectilinear CDI/Glideslope display.
Terra -
Once, the only radio stack that would fit in a 235/320/360. Terra's buyer quickly learned how bad the product quality was and discontinued the product. Gulf Coast Avionics bought the parts supply and keeps those radios extant, operating. I still have remnants of my original Terra stack still working - a backup radio and the transponder. The audio panel is peculiarly limping along and all I can use the ADF for is listening to Rush.
UPS-
Has done a fine job with ?'s (my memory is shot) radios after they bought them out. I put a Slimline 70 in an airplane with it's built-in GPS, VOX intercom and an ability that allows you to monitor the stand-by frequency. Are slimlines still available?
Garmin-
When my Terra Com1 and Nav radios went belly up along with an ancient GPS, It was easy to decide on the Garmin 430 -
1. All the radio parameters are user adjustable from the front panel knobs including squelch sensitivity and whether or not to use 8.33 Kh spacing.
2. The GPS moving map was a spectacular improvement and the GPS produces ARINC steering commands for the autopilot.
3. The VOR/LOC/GL radio provided direct control of my KI206 CDI thus allowing the removal of a large King interface box.
4. The human interface is pretty good. My previous GPs was hopeless to use beyond the "direct to" function.
5. The GPS accepts air data and magnetic heading data in a variety of formats, including those provided by Rocky Mountain Instrument's Micro-encoder - thus making E6B computations instantly available, even a winds aloft direction arrow and speed always displayed on the moving map.
Planning your stack should include cost comparisons of individual component systems (ala King) versus combination systems (like Garmin or UPS). If you are going to do the wiring yourself, simplicity of interconnection may not be a cost consideration item. However, in my case, I got rid of a 50-pin Nav source switching unit and the incredibly complex wiring harness when installing a combo unit.
Think digital. Things are changing faster than ever. I started building my airplane in 1989. Avionics planned in 1990 included ADF and Loran and by the time it made its first long x-country in 1997, It didn't matter that the ADF wouldn't work and the Loran was replaced by rudimentary GPS. In 1998 I added a Tracker II moving map strapped to my leg and fed by the panel GPS. In 2000 the Garmin 430, and all it's features along with the promise of WAAS compatibility, was installed.
Think ARINC data bus. This is the way affordable integration of weather, navigation and traffic will occur.
Think flexible display. You will need one. Especially as airspace (vertically and laterally) gets more controlled.
If you are not 90% complete (with 90% to go) in building, do not actually buy the planned avionics. Delay this as long as possible. My mistake was buying things too early. Plan for flexibility. Besides the examples I gave above, consider these:
I had decided to use Vision Microsystem's fuel and engine monitoring system and since I was building the wings, I not only ordered the fuel probes, but the complete EPI 800 system. This was done shortly before the VM1000 system was available. Duh! If only I had just bought the probes - after all, I didn't fly for 6 more years!
As I was starting to construct my panel by cutting holes in the molded fiberglass, I actually bought vacuum instruments (ugh) for fit - sitting on the shelf for a couple of years meant they were prematurely replaced after only a few years of flight time. The same was true for the autopilot - all I needed were the servos, not the DG to continue building.
Think about the future - not only the first flight, but the many years of flying your afterwards.
Scott Krueger
N92EX
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