Are we moving too fast? Longevity...

[BobTurner]

As someone twice your age, I'm not so sure the good old days were so good. When I started driving (1965) any car that made it to 100,000 miles was considered amazing. Now it's routine. As a long time Cessna owner I lost count of the number of times mechanical gyros were overhauled or replaced. And of course it was not if, but when, the dry vacuum pump would quit. I do think the modern glass has an infant mortality issue, and it's true that there can be superfluous information presented, but overall I think it's an amazing improvement from the past. And the cost, in inflation adjusted dollars, is so much less that triple redundancy is easily possible.

[walldan]

Originally Posted by BobTurner

As someone twice your age, I'm not so sure the good old days were so good. When I started driving (1965) any car that made it to 100,000 miles was considered amazing. Now it's routine. As a long time Cessna owner I lost count of the number of times mechanical gyros were overhauled or replaced. And of course it was not if, but when, the dry vacuum pump would quit. I do think the modern glass has an infant mortality issue, and it's true that there can be superfluous information presented, but overall I think it's an amazing improvement from the past. And the cost, in inflation adjusted dollars, is so much less that triple redundancy is easily possible.

This is one reason I really enjoy the VAF. Someone can post about their perception on something and get a lot of great information with out being attacked.

There are so many good perspectives in the previous posts and I want to thank you all for taking the time to answer. The quote above is particular good. Because from my perspective I commented on how long the "good old fashioned stuff" lasted. But in reality have actually have NO idea how many components were replaced, repaired, and overhauled in the old 172 I used to rent.

I think my bigger concern is two part. The first is supplier longevity and as mentioned in several previous posts it is buyer beware. If you buy from a larger, more well established company you probably have better odds of getting parts and service in the distant future. However even that is no guarantee. Today I had a shock when I found out a part on my 2008 Pick up is No Longer Available. This same part was used thru 2015 and the manufacture shows NO Stock and discontinued. My dealer wouldn't even try to find one. Thank goodness eBay had 3 and I didn't have to have the part custom made.

My other concern is with our society transition to a throw away mentality. Many people in our society must have the best of everything. There is nothing wrong when you can afford it. My fear with aviation is manufactures seeing this as a way to cut corners. I have seen this with consumer appliances. Old appliances lasted forever. The first microwave I ever used is still running at my parents house but my wife and I have gone thru 3 in 6 years. I believe (hope) aviation is different and the big brands are going to continue to put out a quality product. If they don't it will be the end of them.

Daniel

[sblack]

I think that you ate right that our airplanes will get new avionics every 10 yrs or so. Companies will come and go, capabilities will grow exponentially, most of us are suckers for gadgets and want to have the best stuff. So if you lay out $20k which is easy to do, it will likely last about that long. That's the risk most of us are willing to take.

If you buy good steam gauges you will likely have to overhaul them at some point as well, and you won't have nearly the capability and lets face it, for a lot of us geeks having a really good efis is part of the fun and these machines are all about fun. I will be putting a low end efis in my vfr airplane, never even considered steam.

So yes, you risk having a panel that becomes an orphan or obsolete, but you can have a lot of fun till it does. Technology IS moving really fast but nobody can do anything to stop it. The unibomber tried and he was not successful. So don't worry about it, just go fly and have fun.

[Low Pass]

Originally Posted by wallda

This is one reason I really enjoy the VAF. Someone can post about their perception on something and get a lot of great information with out being attacked....

Hang around a while. You're only at post 31.

[Jordan1976]

Originally Posted by wallda

My fear with aviation is manufactures seeing this as a way to cut corners. I have seen this with consumer appliances. Old appliances lasted forever. The first microwave I ever used is still running at my parents house but my wife and I have gone thru 3 in 6 years. I believe (hope) aviation is different and the big brands are going to continue to put out a quality product. If they don't it will be the end of them.

This is known as survivorship bias, and does not mean old things were built better on average. It just means a few of them survived, and those are the only things you remember today. Where's the old fridge, oven, water heater, TV, car, washing machine, etc?:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Generically, Aviation is an amazing example of this. Airplanes and avionics are not built amazingly well - we just think of them that way because we maintain them (at great expense) and force them to survive because it's cheaper to do that than buy a new one. The only reason you replaced those microwaves instead of fixing them is that they were so inexpensive to purchase that it was cheapest to just buy a new one.

[Neal@F14]

Originally Posted by Raymo

What is interesting to me is that many of the devices we rely on today (phones, tablets, EFIS, etc.) are built on a Linux foundation, which has been around for well over a decade and continues to evolve to support various new products.

How about more than 2 decades I built my first Linux machine in 1994!

[rmartingt]

The market for new and overhauled steam gauges is going to keep falling, especially now that Dynon has broken the barrier to getting non-TSOed instruments installed with an STC. Especially for gyro instruments, you're going to pay more and more and it's going to be harder to find places to do it.

If the Primary Non-Commercial category ever gets implemented then I expect the steam market to all but disappear as the cost of glass falls and steam rises. Once they cross, it's all over except for a niche market of airplanes that can't get glass or people with the desire and cash to stay steam.

[az_gila]

Originally Posted by rmartingt

The market for new and overhauled steam gauges is going to keep falling, especially now that Dynon has broken the barrier to getting non-TSOed instruments installed with an STC. Especially for gyro instruments, you're going to pay more and more and it's going to be harder to find places to do it.

If the Primary Non-Commercial category ever gets implemented then I expect the steam market to all but disappear as the cost of glass falls and steam rises. Once they cross, it's all over except for a niche market of airplanes that can't get glass or people with the desire and cash to stay steam.

Yes, but it's interesting that the "enabler" for all of these new avionics is the availability of cheap GPS and motion-sensing chips and display screens which are mass-produced (aka cheap) for cell phones, DVD players, tablets and playstations...

If Dynon had to custom make the above chips and screens we would be paying in the 100's of thousands for avionics.

[Toobuilder]

While I absolutely appreciate and use much of the functionality of the current glass compared to the old steam, it seems that we have moved well beyond the requirements for basic utility. We are now buying the latest stuff just to have the latest stuff. I think that?s fine if that?s your thing, but I?d love to see development of more features ?freeze? and be able to buy a large format glass display that simply provides the basics. A 12 inch or larger, high resolution D100 would likely be ideal for me. That?s why I was initially excited about the Skyview ?light? product, but was let down when I realized it did not even have the functionality of the D10A. That?s a swing and a miss as far as I?m concerned.

How about a low cost, standardized large format display that can talk to a 3rd party IFR navigator and interface with a GPSS autopilot? You can keep your touch screens, moving maps and synthetic vision. My throwaway iPad gives me all that stuff. I want the light weight, reliability and ease of installation the glass offers, but I?d also like it to be relevant long enough to prove it.

[kamikaze]

Originally Posted by Toobuilder

While I absolutely appreciate and use much of the functionality of the current glass compared to the old steam, it seems that we have moved well beyond the requirements for basic utility. We are now buying the latest stuff just to have the latest stuff. I think that?s fine if that?s your thing, but I?d love to see development of more features ?freeze? and be able to buy a large format glass display that simply provides the basics. A 12 inch or larger, high resolution D100 would likely be ideal for me. That?s why I was initially excited about the Skyview ?light? product, but was let down when I realized it did not even have the functionality of the D10A. That?s a swing and a miss as far as I?m concerned.

How about a low cost, standardized large format display that can talk to a 3rd party IFR navigator and interface with a GPSS autopilot? You can keep your touch screens, moving maps and synthetic vision. My throwaway iPad gives me all that stuff. I want the light weight, reliability and ease of installation the glass offers, but I?d also like it to be relevant long enough to prove it.

Agreed. With panels now being software, they're following the same old pattern of getting "feature bloat" ... Certainly seems like there's room for the concept of "multiple editions" (again like many software products) ... Dynon to their credit are doing this with the SE edition!