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actual practice, the approach frequent- ly didn’t get armed. And if armed, the autopilot failed to capture.
There were some things that I did like about the installation. The WAAS 530 f lew the autopilot much more smoothly than before. It f lew automat- ic approach course reversals, holding patterns, missed approach procedures and missed approach holding patterns, which it did not do before. But I needed an upgrade.
Collins Aerospace has a new system, the ProLine Fusion, at an installation cost of $400,000, but it is not available for a CJ2. And based on airport gossip, the ProLine Fusion system requires a full week of classroom training and is described as difficult. We occasionally need to engage a professional pilot from Corporate Air Center at KBVS. They fly the Lear 40 and 45, a G150 on domestic and international f lights, a Pilatus PC- 12, numerous helicopters, and a Lear 35, recently sold. A few years ago, I provided my CJ2 for three of their pilots to receive the C525 type rating (T &T contributor Kevin Ware was
one and wrote about his experience in this magazine). They all know the ProLine 21 system and other avionics installations, but they do not know the ProLine Fusion.
You might ask why we don’t just trade our CJ2 for a CJ2+ with newer avionics. That would be fine but at a differential of $1 million. We have had a total of three overnight mechanical delays over 18 years and 2,000 hours of operation in our CJ2. This airplane has been reliable and does everything we want it to do.
In January 2017, Carolyn and I pur- chased a 2009 B407 from Bell Helicopter in Ft. Worth, Texas. It was outfitted with a G500 display, a GTN750 GPS and a HeliSAS autopilot. Because the 750 was new to us, we engaged long- arm Lewis – the protagonist in many fables of Kevin Ware published in these pages – to fly with us from Ft. Worth to KBVS. Flying VFR in January, you want to cross the mountains in the south rather than attempting a direct route. The GTN750 has been easy to learn, very intuitive, and flies a
better coupled LPV approach than our 530-equipped Citation.
I then learned (I don’t recall where) that Garmin International, Inc. oper- ates a CJ2 with dual GTN750’s based on an STC developed by JetTech. I contacted the company, and Rob Irwin of JetTech quoted us a price for the installation of dual GTN750Xi’s with GMA 35 Audio Panel and voice-acti- vated intercom, including autopilot coupled WAAS LPV and GTX 335/345 ADS B (In and Out), and traffic display on both GTN’s. The installation includ- ed Flight Stream 510, GDL69A Satellite weather and radio and AIS 380 digital fuel flow with the replacement of all instrument panels. A key to fitting dual 750’s was the replacement of ex- isting standby ADI and altimeter dials with a Garmin GI 275 standby instru- ment that displays attitude, altitude and airspeed.
We delivered the CJ2 to JetTech at KBJC in July. The projected three to four-week installation time was achieved despite a week delay due to
Covington Aircraft
December 2020 / TWIN & TURBINE • 27