View Full Version : Glass cockpit in older GA Airraft
Ozgrade3
23rd Aug 2004, 17:01
I have been looking at Cessna and Pipers anouncements that they are equiping even their most basic single with the glass cockpits from Garmin and Avidyne.
Is it possible to take an older airframe, and replace the olde instrument with the new glass cockpits in something like a chieftain.
Tinstaafl
23rd Aug 2004, 17:12
That depends on how much $$$ you're willing to throw at it.
To replace the all the systems would probably involve some form of STC from the glass manufacture, a 3rd party or the airframe manufacturer. I recall a mob in Melbourne (?) fitted partial glass to a Duchess a number of years ago although that's a much simpler case.
pigboat
24th Aug 2004, 00:49
There's a guy in Alaska that has installed a 'glass' cockpit in a Beaver. Yep, that's right a Beaver. I forget the exact set-up the guy has, but it isn't Garmin. There's a picture of the cockpit somewhere on this site (www.dhc-2.com/) in the month of February or March I think.
Max Ward installed a glass cockpit in his Twin Otter during the rebuild after his accident in Yellowknife. Neat!
:ok:
Then there was the former CEO/Chairman of the Greyhound Corporation and his Lockheed JetStar.
He wants all glass up-front.
So, the aeroplane is wheeled into the hangar in Arizona, all of the steam gauges are removed, the wiring harness(s) removed, only to find out that the FAA would not certify the new glass installation.
Sooo, new wiring was fabricated, the old steam gauges were re-installed, and the aircraft departed...with the owner considerably poorer...to the tune of $1.2 million.
A fiasco of the highest order.:{
Sometimes...older is better.:ooh:
pigboat
24th Aug 2004, 02:15
He thinks a lot of that thing, don't he? :D
Someone had an STC on a glass cockpit in a G1, I think it might have been Atlantic Aviation in Wilmington DE. It was a pretty nice installation, and that was the price back then - 20 years ago - a million two.
Well, they had just done the tank and plank inspection, applied new paint, and completed the interior...so yes, he liked the aeroplane.
It wouldn't have been so bad except the avionics guys cut all the old wiring harnesses while removing same and it would have taken about five thousand splices to make it whole again...the FAA had a sense of humor failure about all this, so new harnesses were ordered from Lockheed...that had to be expensive.
Haste makes waste.