5. Low-Cost Digital Retrofit Avionics
Over the past year, we’ve seen some great progress in the introduction of nontraditionally certificated products becoming available for retrofit into light GA planes. The problem has been around for a while. While new digital avionics are safer and cheaper than their analog predecessors, it’s harder and more expensive to certify those avionics for Part 23 birds. It’s the opposite of how it should be. So a couple of years ago, the FAA started working with the industry to get these high-quality, low-cost avionics into the cockpits of lower-value planes, at first through regulatory sleight of hand and, later, through regulatory reform. The result has been a mixed bag. A couple of products, most notably Garmin’s remarkably affordable (about $2500) G5 digital attitude indicator and horizontal situation indicator (HSI) has been hugely successful, with Garmin shipping thousands of them last year. Garmin’s add-on GFC 500 digital autopilot (see our pilot report in the November 2018 Plane & Pilot) is a companion piece to the G5 and does things no autopilot at its price point should ever be able to do. But it does, and more. Genesys Aerosystems’ S-TEC 3100 digital autopilot came on the scene in a big way in 2018, too, and is now certificated in more than 100 aircraft types. This hopefully will be a continuing story, and we look forward to reporting on more news next year of further advances.
