Crazy Idea, or Brilliant one???

O.K. gang, little mental excursion into the future here.

Look at the new offerings from PSEngineering, and Garmin.................

We have all grown aware of, and many are now using all-in-one EFIS boxes, that replace a half dozen or more round gauges, so I am wondering if the time is right for an extension of that concept to our radio stack????

I can see an application for an all-in-one box that is dual com radios, VOR and GPS nav radios, audio panel, intercom, transponder, weather radio, and entertainment center. ETC. Clearance read back recorder??

It will fit in the same panel space as a stack of discreet units, and have a large display screen with the various information presented similar to what we now have in the EFIS units. Control knobs/buttons like an EFIS.

Think of the wiring of such a unit-----power and ground, antennas, headset jacks, and communication to the EFIS for any alerts, and remote control of the frequencies. Lighting??? All else is internally hard wired.

What say you???

MGL and Dynon already seem to be showing signs of (at least I can see them) heading off in this direction, even if they dont know it.............

i personally do not want all of those eggs in a single basket

bkthomps said:

i personally do not want all of those eggs in a single basket

Click to expand...

Understand completely------that is why I have the round gauges for backup to my EFIS's----but this is just a mental exercise in forward thinking.

Even if such a box was in existence, I would carry a hand held as a backup.

OOPS, forgot to include in my original description, user addressable functions, again like a modern EFIS------user can setup single or dual com, single or dual VOR, etc.

Sounds like a G900X with just a few minor additions That seems to work just fine for quite a few RV-10 drivers... but that pesky price tag seems to be turning off a lot of others...

A duffer's perspective

I am reminded of the audio/visual systems from my youth. Everyone wanted a "console TV" with a radio, record player, and TV all wrapped up in a single piece of furniture. Problem was, the various components became obsolete and or failed at different times but could not be replaced individually.

John Clark ATP, CFI
FAA FAAST Team Member
EAA Flight Advisor
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA

Remote access

Good bright LCD displays are expensive and take a lot of panel space. What I would love to see is the EFIS guys promote 'headless' radios, autopilots etc with a standardized interface to their displays.
With two LCD panels all your eggs would not be in one basket, individual item would cost less, take up no panel space and maybe even integrate a bit better as a cohesive solution instead of a collection of independent devices

I would like to see some or all of the following:

NAV (speaking SL30 protocol)
NAV/COM (speaking SL30 protocol)
GPS (speaking ARINC and NMEA protocols)
NAV/GPS (speaking ARINC and NMEA protocols)
NAV/GPS/COM (speaking ARINC and NMEA protocols)

in NON-CERTIFIED (read less expensive) panel mount versions with the GPS's meeting the requirements for Enroute, Approach, ADSB capabilities (WAAS, RAIM, ADSB-Out source, Etc.)

Most agree that we are not required to use certified gear but we are required to meet the same specs...right now nothing out there does that I am aware of. Most people agree that meeting the spec is the easy part, it is the hassle and cost of certification that is the costly hard one. There is absolutely no reason other than corporate greed and no competition that a panel mounted whiz bang GPS should cost $11K+!

MGL has promised a Nav, Nav/Com that takes care of #1 and #2.
Nobody seems to see the huge market in the rest of the items.

If I were one of these Experimental EFIS makers or someone like PSE, I would be producing non-certified competition for Garmin and I would die a multi millionaire! The market is huge, I have no idea why they are not diving into it???

New Garmin stuff...

Mike,

I'm in agreement with you about always having a back up for when the "new, it never fails, gee wiz" device....well...fails.

Real life example - I was taking a Westwind from Atlanta to Costa Rica once when about 600 miles out over the middle of the Gulf of Mexico(non radar environment, international airspace, mandatory reporting points to keep us all separated...) - POOF! BOTH Garmin 530 and 430 shut all the way off. O-F-F...it shut off After sitting there in amazment for what seemed like an eternity (but was probably only 60 seconds or less...) POOF! Back on they both came...at the same time!! Completely dumped the while flight plan and radio freqs we were talking on - good thing we always wrote everything down on paper for reference Nothing like being in the middle of nowhere whith no means of communication or navigation

The newest Falcon jet, the 7X, is an all fly by wire set up with no manual back up. Dassault says that the airplane has 3 separate flight computers to control the airplane and that the odds of all 3 computers failing is next to impossible. They also said the Titanic was "unsinkable"...I'd like a manual back up.

I don't know if you've seen the latest stuff from Garmin (GTN 750 and GTN 650) announced at the AEA show in Reno, but Garmin has introduced the "replacement" for the 530/430 units. These things are wild for sure - all touch screen with some pretty neat capabilities like 3D sound (allows different sounds in the cockpit sound like they're comming from different directions), chart view, enroute victor airways, high jet routes and voice recognition software that allows you to tell the unit what you want it to do-("Dave...What are you doing Dave....?" ) This sounds like what you're describing with an "all in one unit" with dual nav, coms, transponder, traffic, audio panel and so on.

Call me old fashioned, but in all my 5,500 hrs in the sky I have never had a failure of the entire panel of a steam gage airplane. Sure I've had my share of individual instrument failures, but I've never had all of the fail at once. What bothers me about all this "glass" is something you pointed out in your second post - if the magic box fails, how much critical stuff goes away? We've all trained to fly instrument approaches in a partial pannel world with the DG inop or the Airtifical Horizon inop, or the Altimiter failed..etc... yet we have all the information we lost being provded for us on the remaining gages. I'd hate to be shooting an approach in IMC and have my "all glass panel" go AWOL on me without SOME sort of back up. In the airplanes I fly that have EFIS, the feds require that we have back up steam gages installed just incase the box fails.

I drool just as much as the next guy when I see a full glass panel, ie G-900, installed in an airplane. I wish I had the cash to have that kind of a set up! Its cooler than ice tea! But when thats ALL I see....

I'd be first in line to have an all in one dash, but only if I can have a back up. That's my opinion...and we all know what they say about opinions...

Brian, you are a lot more of a tech guy than I am, so I am glad you see the same thing I do------Potential for a product.

Systems integration I believe they call it.

And, YES----non certified to make it both affordable, and easy to improve/upgrade.

Make the operating system/logic standard, and publish it--- open source, I think they call that one.

Radomir said:

Sounds like a G900X with just a few minor additions That seems to work just fine for quite a few RV-10 drivers... but that pesky price tag seems to be turning off a lot of others...

Click to expand...

You beat me to it. My -10 panel will have the 900X and a VP200. Now, to address the 'eggs in one basket' topic, they aren't. You only see 2 or three displays but there is more behind the scenes. My VP200 will have 2 controller units. The G900X has a variety of boxes behind the screens; lose one and you don't lose the rest. In a well designed system there really is no single point of failure though, just as with an analog system, you still need to train and practice for the failures that can occur.

LifeisGood said:

I don't know if you've seen the latest stuff from Garmin (GTN 750 and GTN 650) announced at the AEA show in Reno, but Garmin has introduced the "replacement" for the 530/430 units.

Click to expand...

Sure did, re-read my second line in the opening post.

The new stuff from both Garmin, and PSE are what started the grey cells churning on this.

Mike S said:

Sure did, re-read my second line in the opening post.

The new stuff from both Garmin, and PSE are what started the grey cells churning on this.

Click to expand...

That's what I hoped you were talking about

LifeisGood said:

In the airplanes I fly that have EFIS, the feds require that we have back up steam gages installed just incase the box fails.

Click to expand...

when I was planning for my panel, I thought I had so much redundancy in the glass screen, what could go wrong? It was only a couple of days later I heard of a report of GA plane with full glass panel to have an electrical problem and lost all glass instrument. I would not fly any glass panel in the soup if it does not have back up steam gauges.

Also, not a fond of "all eggs in a basket" type solution either, this is for saftely and maintenance reason.

cost

My issue with "one big stack" is it ratchets up the cost. IF you are already planning a $20K+ IFR panel, then perhaps its a wash or potentially even some savings. But, I (and maybe other pilots) need to spend money is smaller doses. For example, one EFIS, then autopilot servos, ten a second display - some things may be bought here on VAF, etc. Radios have the same issue. an SL30 for $4K+, a new GPS/COM for $10K, ...

I love all the enhancements for my "round gauge panel" but's it's got to be spread out over 10 years.

Brantel said:

...in NON-CERTIFIED (read less expensive) panel mount versions with the GPS's meeting the requirements for Enroute, Approach, ADSB capabilities (WAAS, RAIM, ADSB-Out source, Etc.)...

...There is absolutely no reason other than corporate greed and no competition that a panel mounted whiz bang GPS should cost $11K+!...

...If I were one of these Experimental EFIS makers or someone like PSE, I would be producing non-certified competition for Garmin and I would die a multi millionaire! The market is huge, I have no idea why they are not diving into it???

Click to expand...

EAA states there are more than 32k experimentals on the FAA registers. Of course, this includes MANY vfr only ships that are neither capable of, nor desired to operate with approach WAAS equipment, as well as craft that may be on the register but not flying/flyable. For that matter, the pilot is also a limiting factor. What percentage of experimental owners are IFR qualified? Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that the number that would consider this capability as 5k (i.e. once you discount all the Pietenpol's, cub-clones, LSA's, bi-planes, ultralights, etc. and exclude VFR only pilots in the fleet). Since $11k is too much, let's assume a comparable non-cert version could be produced for $5k. That represents a possible revenue of $25M if everyone were to run out and re-equip their planes now. Of course, this doesn't happen, and lots of those planes already have 430W's in them. If we assume panels get re-worked every 10 years, the annual market would be about $2.5M revenue. That would have to be split up between the players in the market. If we assume Garmin would still get half (like they seem to on comms and xponders, despite other options), we have about a $1.25M market for non-certified WAAS enabled approach equipment. Since we're ruling out corporate greed, margins would have to be reasonable. If we assume 10%, there would be $125k to put towards overhead for the vendor(s) who wanted to do this. The more there are, the more the pie get's cut up.

Of course, there are a lot of assumptions built into this, but I'm not convinced the market is huge. I think there just aren't enough experimental owners desirous of IFR approach capability. We see good success stories on the EFIS side, but that is different. ALL planes need flight instruments, a non-cert EFIS can often be cheaper and lighter than steam gauges, and you don't need an extra ticket to fly behind them, so the market can be much broader based against the experimental fleet.

good ROI breakdown

I hadn't put the numbers down but I see it is small[er] than probably desirable.

I think it will be a long time before we are worrying if VOR/ILS approaches will go away. Personally, I'd like a more affordable enroute-IFR option and assume I still need something like the SL-30 for the last 15 minutes of an IFR flight.

Of course, I fall into another pretty big category that Java did not cover - the IFR rated but not really qualified crowd. My IFR skills get very little exercise so I'd not want to push it

All this is to say, that affordable / non-certified IFR components would be a huge step for the experimental crowd, even if it was not an all-in-one unit.

I think you are underestimating the possible market. If AFS and GRT can thrive with products that are highly integrated with and for the IFR platform and Dynon can still get away with selling thousands of their units, tha market must be pretty darn good....

I can see why there are no individuals doing it, but these EFIS makers already have the talent, facilities and overhead covered so the true cost to them to enter the market with a product would be much less than a startup company...

Another thought.. How many panels are sitting in people's garages and not in a registered airplane?

How many RV's do you see at flyins with 430's that have never seen IFR use?

How many people would install the gear anyway even if they never were going to go IFR just because they could with a less expensive option available?

Another thought-------this could be a modular setup, like Dynon is doing with the Skyview system, their mode S xpndr is remote, but controlled by the Skyview.

MGL is doing a com radio that is remote, controlled by the EFIS.

The main radio box could contain all the needed control elements, and the high power stuff could be remote. Simple plug in connection ---- ether net cable for instance??

This would let you develop a "buy it as you need it" program, it would save on initial cost, and the control head would use less current, and generate less heat.

And, it would be smaller, easier to find a home for.

Integrated vs. distributed system

Advantages for both. In the middle days (I hesitate to say the old days) I had an Archer II with a Bendix 2000 unit that contained two com and two Nav radios connected to two electronic nav display units (round VOR/LOC/GS). I owned the plane for 22 years with the same unit. It was very reliable (I flew to work and back each or night) in Los Angeles. When it failed the airplane was out of service until it was repaired. Vertually no one had the capability to test and repair it. Initially a company at the airport in Hayward (Oakland area) provided service but as the years went by I had to send it to Bendix in Wichita for rerpair. The last time (not too long before I completed the RV-6A) the fellow at Wichita told me that they were shutting down their capability and I would have to send it to Florida in the future. Terrific radio but with everything integrated I knew I was soon going to be faced with the need to replace everything. Mind you this was when when things were hard wired up to the integrated circuit level but the whims of software engineering did not have to be dealt with. Now the releases/revisions/patches are never error free and manufacturer support dependence is greater. The more single box integrated the system becomes the less control the field user has. Hovever, if the units are so cheap and small that you don't care, you can have redundant systems and throw away the failed units. Somehow that seems bad.

Bob Axsom

Brantel said:

I would like to see some or all of the following:

NAV (speaking SL30 protocol)
NAV/COM (speaking SL30 protocol)
GPS (speaking ARINC and NMEA protocols)
NAV/GPS (speaking ARINC and NMEA protocols)
NAV/GPS/COM (speaking ARINC and NMEA protocols)

in NON-CERTIFIED (read less expensive) panel mount versions with the GPS's meeting the requirements for Enroute, Approach, ADSB capabilities (WAAS, RAIM, ADSB-Out source, Etc.)

Most agree that we are not required to use certified gear but we are required to meet the same specs...right now nothing out there does that I am aware of. Most people agree that meeting the spec is the easy part, it is the hassle and cost of certification that is the costly hard one. There is absolutely no reason other than corporate greed and no competition that a panel mounted whiz bang GPS should cost $11K+!

MGL has promised a Nav, Nav/Com that takes care of #1 and #2.
Nobody seems to see the huge market in the rest of the items.

If I were one of these Experimental EFIS makers or someone like PSE, I would be producing non-certified competition for Garmin and I would die a multi millionaire! The market is huge, I have no idea why they are not diving into it???

Click to expand...

You talk my language man!!!!

Starting to see the integration

OK, I'm starting to build some real use cases for this.

I file a flight plan and start out. I get some changes to my filed plan so I need an easy way to change the flight plan in my nav-stack. As I near the my destination I get my final approach.

In addition to the easy flight plan update, a nav-stack would auotomatically transition he feed of my EFIS from GPS to NAV radio as I intercept the ILS.

Cool is not always better

John Clark said:

I am reminded of the audio/visual systems from my youth. Everyone wanted a "console TV" with a radio, record player, and TV all wrapped up in a single piece of furniture. Problem was, the various components became obsolete and or failed at different times but could not be replaced individually.

John Clark ATP, CFI
FAA FAAST Team Member
EAA Flight Advisor
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA

Click to expand...

John,
I think you're pretty smart for a "duffer" !!
I put your statement above so the young guys can read it slowly again and possibly learn from history

Mark

Brantel said:

... Most people agree that meeting the spec is the easy part, it is the hassle and cost of certification that is the costly hard one. There is absolutely no reason other than corporate greed and no competition that a panel mounted whiz bang GPS should cost $11K+!
....
If I were one of these Experimental EFIS makers or someone like PSE, I would be producing non-certified competition for Garmin and I would die a multi millionaire! The market is huge, I have no idea why they are not diving into it???

Click to expand...

Is this sort of one of those challenges like "if you build it; they will come"?!? I'm afraid the real life #'s and facts just don't support that.

If that were the case I think Apple would be selling GPSes instead of Ipads!
Remember, it took Garmin 20 years to sell 100,000 GNS boxes; apple did that with Ipad's in about 6 hours. Considering aviation is only about 8% of Garmin's revenue to begin with, it's hard to make a real life business case of of doing what you suggest....even for the little guy. I think it'd be a way to make a small fortune - if you started out with a large fortune!

My 2 cents as usual!

Cheers,
Stein

Good discussion.

I very well may be wrong but I sure hope there is someone out there that will bust this wide open and prove all of you guys wrong. If not, I will eat the crow, been wrong plenty of times before.

One thing I know I am not wrong on and that is for Experimental Aviation to survive, this stuff must become more affordable!!!

Brantel said:

I would like to see some or all of the following:

NAV (speaking SL30 protocol)
NAV/COM (speaking SL30 protocol)
GPS (speaking ARINC and NMEA protocols)
NAV/GPS (speaking ARINC and NMEA protocols)
NAV/GPS/COM (speaking ARINC and NMEA protocols)

in NON-CERTIFIED (read less expensive) panel mount versions with the GPS's meeting the requirements for Enroute, Approach, ADSB capabilities (WAAS, RAIM, ADSB-Out source, Etc.)

Most agree that we are not required to use certified gear but we are required to meet the same specs...right now nothing out there does that I am aware of. Most people agree that meeting the spec is the easy part, it is the hassle and cost of certification that is the costly hard one. There is absolutely no reason other than corporate greed and no competition that a panel mounted whiz bang GPS should cost $11K+!

MGL has promised a Nav, Nav/Com that takes care of #1 and #2.
Nobody seems to see the huge market in the rest of the items.

If I were one of these Experimental EFIS makers or someone like PSE, I would be producing non-certified competition for Garmin and I would die a multi millionaire! The market is huge, I have no idea why they are not diving into it???

Click to expand...

Hi Brian,
Do you know what the TSO requirements for an approach certified GPS are? I would think a Grand Rapids HX with their internal WAAS/RAIM GPS would come close.

OK, Google is your friend, it is TSO-C129a and can be reviewed at: http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgTSO.nsf/0/e560cd9c6acf8ba186256dc700717e0f/$FILE/C129a.pdf

Would be an interesting "open Source" type of project to document compliance to TSO129a for something like the Grand Rapids RAIM GPS module in the HX.

newtech said:

Hi Brian,
Do you know what the TSO requirements for an approach certified GPS are? I would think a Grand Rapids HX with their internal WAAS/RAIM GPS would come close.

OK, Google is your friend, it is TSO-C129a and can be reviewed at: http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgTSO.nsf/0/e560cd9c6acf8ba186256dc700717e0f/$FILE/C129a.pdf

Would be an interesting "open Source" type of project to document compliance to TSO129a for something like the Grand Rapids RAIM GPS module in the HX.

Click to expand...

TSO c129a only gets you part way there and is the "relatively easy" part of the equation (considered supplemental for IFR flight-not for primary navigation nor is it useable for approaches). I think a number of existing experimental GPSes would/could come close to meeting that TSO but I haven't seen any of them come out and make/substantiate that claim as of yet.

But...that only gets you to the level of a GNC300 or other non WAAS GPS and means you still need a ground based nav system installed to utilize it in IFR. In order to meet the spec for WAAS as a sole means of navigation for GPS standards you dive in to TSO 145a/46a which are incredibly complex. First you decide which "functional" class it's in (Beta, gamma or delta) and then which of the 4 "operational classes" within the functional class it falls under. You then have to meet parts of DO160D for environmental qualification, DO178B for software, and DO229a for a whole slew of other things. Then you have to look at antenna TSO's (like C144), and you'll start to get a picture of what it takes to do this and also see why there are only a half dozen or so units in the marketplace certified to 145a and/or 146a. Meeting all those specs is far from the easy part because once you do all of that, the certification part is a relative breeze!

In the end my point isn't that it can't be done because some of our beloved experimental units are well on their way there...but mainly that this is much more complicated than I think many people realize when comparing it to a normal piece of electronics equipment or devices. Hopefully Brian is right and someone will step up in the future (others are working on it) but it isn't a trivial task at all.

My 2 cents as usual!

Cheers,
Stein

I hope you are wrong

Brantel said:

Good discussion.
...
One thing I know I am not wrong on and that is for Experimental Aviation to survive, this stuff must become more affordable!!!

Click to expand...

The survival of experimental aviation doesn't depend on electronics at all unless the government forces the situation. That's possible I guess.

Bob Axsom

Bob,

You are correct...the term I used above "stuff" to me means much more than avionics. I meant the overall cost associated with playing in this hobby.

The ADS-B requirements coming down the road are an example where the Gov. Is going to make electronics increase our cost...

Not tomarow but TWO DAYS LATE.
Why not use BLUETOOTH Tech, for ALL to talk to all.
If one goes down, you only loose that one.
This might save 20 lbs. of wire.
You could replace any one item.
Just Thinking !

Thanks!!

phobos_49 said:

Just Thinking !

Click to expand...

That is the entire reason I started this thread, get folks to think about this concept.

I like the bluetooth idea------but then I know virtually nothing about it. Any chance the transponder would try to tell the GPS what the frequency of the weather is????