Page 11 - TNTApril2018

Considering the Upgrade: What the Experts Say
Over the last ve years, the general aviation aircraft market has made a slow recovery, with the values of preowned aircraft steadily stabilizing and steady improvement in the deliveries of new aircraft. One very bright spot in the industry is the surge in avionics sales and installations. Spurred by the ADS-B mandate and demand for WAAS, retro t avionics sales in 2017 grew more than 20 percent over the previous year, according to the Aircraft Electronics Association’s re- cently released 2017 Avionics Market Report.
Of the more than $2.3 billion in avionics sales, the retro t market represented nearly 58 percent of all sales, recording an all-time high. By contrast, the forward- t sales (avionics installed by aircraft manu- facturers during original production) marked the lowest dollar amount recorded in the last ve years.
A walk through the hangar of Elliott Aviation, one of the largest retro t avionics installers by volume and sales, provides direct evidence of those trends. In total they have installed more than 300 King Air Garmin G1000 retro ts and are on track to do 50 full installs and as many as 20 G1000-to-NXi upgrades in 2018.
According the Elliott’s Vice President of Avionics Programs Mark Wilken, the company is bullish on the demand for full ight deck retro ts, such as the NXi. “The cost of keeping old avionics systems operational is expensive and nding parts is getting harder. We ask our customers, do you plan to keep your aircraft for at least the next ve years? If the answer is yes, we recommend they upgrade. While they will spend more in the short term, over the course of ve years, they will most likely end up spending the same. It’s a ‘CFO-friendly’ upgrade program.”
The question many owners ask, will I get my investment back when I sell my aircraft? While traditionally it is unlikely that you will recoup 100 percent of the money spent on an avionics upgrade, retro tting older turbine aircraft with the latest technology de nitely makes them more desirable in the marketplace.
According to Tim White, president of jetAVIVA, the largest reseller of preowned turbine aircraft, planes that have already been upgraded to WAAS and ADS-B will sell quicker and at a higher price than those that have yet to be upgraded.
“Older Citations, King Airs or any high-end turbine aircraft that have already been upgraded with something like a Garmin retro t – wheth- er a GTN-series or G-1000 derivative – are the rst choice of owner- pilots making the transition into their rst jet or turboprop. They have most likely been ying behind Garmin for most of, if not all, of their ying experience. We see this as a signi cant attraction. For example, we have seen the straight CJ, CJ1, CJ2, markets be relatively brisk for those aircraft who have already undertaken these upgrades,” he said. “A year ago, it was a rare occurrence that aircraft were up- graded with any type of advanced ight deck. Now it is the expectation and a value detractor if not upgraded.”
Elliott Aviation’s Wilken concurred. “People who have experience with the G1000 don’t want to deal with learning and maintaining older autopilots and avionics. As the owner of an older turbine aircraft, if you are going to spend the $75,000 to upgrade to ADS-B and $75,000 for LPV capability, it makes good sense to go forward with an integrated ight deck upgrade. Yes, you’ll spend a little more, but you’ll get a whole lot more capability, not to mention the safety factors with better situational awareness and weather tools.”
approach guidance, the system will fly the vertical profile to the initial fix, fly the course reversal and descend to the LP altitude without the pilot needing to touch anything but power and con- figuration.
After Minneapolis Center cleared us for the approach and released us from frequency, we tuned in the CTAF for Park Rapids. Another nice feature is that the nav/comm frequency boxes provide identification so that you con- firm what navaid or comm frequency you are currently using.
As we flew the parallel entry and in- tercepted the final approach course, the TCAS 1 overlay lit up with three targets all inbound at the same time, including a Gulfstream and two small single-en- gine pistons. For aircraft without TCAS, the system supports ADS-B In (FIS-B) and Garmin’s TargetTrend technology that displays a more intuitive meth- od of judging target trajectories and closure rates.
Inbound on the approach, I switched my HSI overlay to display terrain and traffic. The NXi has new three-color ter- rain shading with improved contouring. Green signifies 2,000 feet, yellow, 1,000 feet and red is 100 feet. On short final, the SurfaceWatch once again confirmed we were line up with the right runway and provided us runway remaining info on the roll-out.
On the return trip to KIXD, Dave promised to demonstrate the NXi’s most impressive and particularly use- ful feature: the visual approach guid- ance. Once we were cleared for the vi- sual to Runway 18, Dave activated the visual approach mode. The MDF now displayed the magenta visual approach course line and the PFD showed lateral and vertical guidance.
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April 2018
TWIN & TURBINE • 9