MORE ON TECHNICALLY ADVANCED PANELS
I read your Avionics Bootcamp article on retrofitting to the FAA’s Technically Advanced Aircraft standard (July 2023 Aviation Consumer) and there are a few things worth expanding on.
One requirement is for a two-axis autopilot “integrated with navigation and heading guidance system.” You mention that “integrated” is a loose term, but in letters from the FAA, it means coupled to the GPS.
There are no requirements for weather, traffic and terrain graphics. Just the moving map display with aircraft’s position overlaid.
And the required primary flight display must have “at a minimum, an airspeed indicator, turn coordinator, attitude indicator, heading indicator, altimeter and vertical speed indicator.”
In letters from the FAA, these can be split into two displays (which could include two Garmin G5 or GI 275 instruments, as examples) to meet the requirements.
Terry Carraway Jr. – via email
TURBO CLAMP AD
Thank you for bringing the turbocharger V-band clamp AD into the spotlight in the August 2023 issue of Aviation Consumer. My goodness, these V-band clamps have been killing engines and pilots for decades. I personally know of two instances where the V-band clamp on Mooney M20K turbocharged engines broke and nearly burned up two airplanes with 1400-degree gases.
In my personal case, the turbocharger literally stayed on the engine because it was safety wired. As luck would have it, the vacuum pump cratered on the same flight, so removing the cowling became necessary. Only then did we discover the turbo hanging by the safety wire.
I immediately fired off a Service Difficulty Report to the FAA. Not only did it not make it into the registry, it was completely ignored by the FAA.
How this issue kept happening all these years is a black mark on mechanics, manufacturers and especially the FAA.
Richard Cunningham – via email
GARMIN GNS 430W REPAIR
A few weeks after the announcement of GNS factory service coming to an end, my 430W’s internal fan (which only cools the display) started making a noise. I considered sending it to Bevan to replace the fan after my local avionics shop told me they could not do the repair. I also considered replacing it with a $14,000 Avidyne IFD navigator that could slide into my current tray, or upgrading to a Garmin GTN 650Xi for about the same price as the Avidyne, but considerably more overall as the tray is different and there’d be a lot of labor to redo the stack.
I elected to send the 430W to Garmin for factory service, which was $1970. They had it about three weeks, not including transit time. It was last back to Garmin around 2008 for the WAAS upgrade. I decided the newer navigators would not add any important new functionality for me. I wouldn’t be able to use en route VNAV with my current autopilot and I have no need for radius-to-a-fix approaches. I already have connectivity to an iPad via Garmin Connext and it has a higher resolution and faster processor than the newest panel mount navigators.
Although $2000 is a lot of money, it’s not much more than S-TEC charged me last year to repair one of my autopilot servos ($1822 for a “major level repair”) and there’s a whole bunch more to test and replace on a 430W.
The 430W came back looking like new. Although it was in very good condition, I didn’t realize how worn it was. The buttons now have a crisp feel and the knobs feel tight and new. The FAA Form 8130-3 says they replaced the fan, inlay, keypad, knobs and lens. It also mentioned they “master cleaned unit, aligned unit for optimum performance and confirmed all hardware modifications installed.”
If I can get five to 10 more years out of the 430W for $2000, that’s a steal compared to the cost to upgrade, not to mention the pain of having to return to the avionics shop to troubleshoot new problems associated with the upgrade.
Justin Graff – Tupelo, Mississippi
