The fact of the matter is the assertion that Garmin's updates are expensive while implying that others give equal data for free is an outright lie that frankly is getting old.
Actually no it?s not, it is 100% true at this current time. If you want Nav data, Terrain, and Obstacles (US only), you have to pay $99 a year for it from Garmin. If you utilize Dynon, GRT or AFS, there is no recurring cost for the downloads, ?IT?S FREE?. I hope that is easier to interpret.
All of Garmin's data is DO200A qualified, FAA and EASA audited. This is not the case with the free data to my knowledge...correct me if I am wrong.
I have found absolutely nothing to support this claim, it is kind of funny to say that it is audited by the FAA when Garmins Flitecharts are just the FAA?s FREE Terminal Procedures Publications grouped together and sold as a package in their format to take advantage of geo-referenced overlay, but to be fair and equal, AFS does this as well at a cheaper price. The Airport Diagrams are also available free from the FAA to include Approach plates and procedures and can be found
here
Garmin has safe taxi, flight charts and AOPA directory which is not even available elsewhere.
This is also another false claim, unless you want to be specific by name to their trademark licenses, almost all of it is available and can be found in the link previously provided for free, but if you want the Airport Directory from Garmin, it will cost you $50 an update or $195 for a yearly subscriptions on top of the ?$99? map data. If you have Advanced Flight for instance, they also offer this data without a recurring yearly cost. It includes the airport information with additional need to know items such as frequencies and services-at-airport information just like Garmin does.
Single download Airport Diagrams from Garmin- $50
Single download Airport Diagrams from Advanced- $25
Single download Airport Diagrams from FAA- FREE
Single download Geo-Referenced Approach Plates, IFR Charts, VFR Sectionals from Garmin- $75
Single download Geo-Referenced Approach Plates, IFR Charts, VFR Sectionals from Advanced- $50
Truth be told, if I'm spending well north ten thousand dollars like these panels cost... limiting my future capability based on a hundred dollars seems incredibly short sighted. It costs more than that to fill my truck fuel tank and the 'free' data is neither equal nor guaranteed to remain free.
Nothing is guaranteed to remain free until the end of time, but the FAA has been distributing all of this information for Free download on the internet for years and is not only ?EQUAL? but is exactly what Garmin uses to build their Flitecharts they sell. Kahuna from Aerodynamix has been a huge advocate for GRT users in terms of making all of this free information available to other GRT users by doing almost all of the leg work on his own, then spelling out how to do it, making these forums invaluable in certain aspects to pilots trying to remain current in this ever more expensive hobby of ours, and for that I salute him and his dedication to this sport.
Garmin is even cheaper now and make no mistake, when Garmin dropped their prices this year the rest had to follow suit. That's the only reason we are finally seeing a price break on these overpriced systems (all of them)
You will get no argument here from that statement. So to that I say, Thank you Garmin for coming in and driving down the prices on some of the avionics I have long dreamed about and can now afford, either Advanced Flight or GRT will soon be gaining my business due to their competitive reaction.