Considering an Avionics Upgrade to Skyview, Requesting Opinions

[jaredyates]

So far my plan for ADSB compliance has been to wait for a no-brainer solution, and there hasn't really been one. Since I can do my own installation and don't need to be compliant for my day-to-day flights, time is on my side, and I haven't been in a rush.

But then a couple of days ago I just got an email from Dynon announcing their new buy-back program for the old stuff. If I buy a new Skyview package and send them the old D180, D100, and HS34, they'll rebate 75% of the retail price of each. That's more than I paid for any of those units, and when I bought them I figured that I'd probably be using them until they were worthless, so this got my attention.

I made up a spreadsheet to add up the cost of the new stuff and the rebates for the old stuff. The incoming shopping list includes two 7" screens (no synthetic vision or touch), one ADAHRS, EMS, Transponder, the cheaper GPS, ADSB receiver, 429 box (to allow the skyview to interface with the GNS430), and remote magnet sensor. The net cost of that swap would be around $5500, based on what Dynon says they'll pay, and me selling the Garmin 327 transponder for what I figure I can get for it (not much, alas). I'd be losing dual ADAHRS functionality, though I could add that back now or later for another $800. As far as I can tell, that's the only function I'd be losing.

As for features that I'd be gaining, that would include ADSB in and out, (though only 970 traffic), plus whatever advantages the Skyview has over the D100 series. I compare that to the cost of equipping to compliance while keeping the D180/100, which so far seems to be in the $3k range. The simplest swap from Garmin is $4500 for their 345. So this leaves me wondering if the Skyview features are worth the extra $2500, but I haven't even flown with the system, so I don't know how to think about that. I tend to think that the skyview will be supported with better software updates and for a longer time, and it also is likely that Dynon will offer modular upgrades to the system, as they already have. It has some mapping of its own, whereas my current navigation comes only from the 430 and the ipad. The skyview is able to interface with the ipad as I understand it, and that is cool. I'd be able to ditch the flaky serial-USB converter and more readily download recorded data, which would be nice. But is all of that worth $2500 and the down time of a panel redo?

Everybody loves to talk about panel planning, so let's hear it! What should I do?

[whee]

I imagine the Skyview system meets the requirements of the TSO and that Dynon is willing to send you a statement of compliance so I'd do it. Sounds like a good deal to me. My only hesitation is if the system really will meet the TSO requirements and if the Feds determine it doesn't then who will be left holding the bag.

The newer hardware that will be supported for longer would be a big motivator for me to upgrade.

[Battson]

Haha, I was tempted by that Dynon offer too. But they won't get me so easily - 2020 is still a long way away, in terms of in the electronics / avionics development life-cycle. Dynon knows their competition is going to get harder to beat, and ADS-B will get very cheap by 2020. That is why they are launching these offers early. But yes, the big question is whether their system achieves compliance with the regulations.

Having flown a Bearhawk with both these setups: basically your current D100 series setup + GPS, and the full-blown twin Skyview with every optional extra possible - I think the Skyview's only big selling point is the ADS-B functionality. Everything else is just nice to have, but of limited meaningful value in real terms. Maybe if you like a paperless cockpit - but here you legally have to carry the paper documents (maps & plates) anyway.
The only driver to update is support - but it's not software support - what you actually need is hardware support AKA maintainability. The software is static and stable on the D100 series products already. It will last as long as the hardware lasts (circa 20 years on average). In twenty years the Skyview will look every bit as outdated as the D100 series.

No sale here, I will be looking in late-2019.

[Battson]

I figure the cheapest way to get ADS-B from Dynon is to add a third screen with the ADAHRS + GPS + XPNDER, and forget about their trade in... But I have not run the numbers, I just figure it should be easier overall when I consider the cost and work involved. In your case that's possibly one too many ADAHRS for what you need, but for me with a D120 it is desirable redundancy. I also saved room in my panel for the third screen, and three screens is going to look good. Hahaha.

[Battson]

I asked Dynon about this option just a few days ago - it is workable.

http://dynonavionics.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1475005837/0#2

[jaredyates]

Those three run about $6k over here.

[jaredyates]

I didn't realize there is ambiguity about the Skyview's compliance with the TSO, is that what you guys are saying?

Thanks for your input about having flown with the two systems Battson, and the other thoughts too. When updating aging electronics I'd prefer to wait until the incremental upgrade gains are substantial enough, and going from D100 to Skyview is a pretty small incremental step.

It seems that the key wager is whether or not things will get cheaper. I can think of several cases in aviation gadgetry where the price stayed about the same and the feature list got longer, in some cases with thanks only to the marketing department. Headsets have been a great example. In the scenario of buying a competitor's package and starting from scratch, the net cost is likely to be much higher. A competitor's option would have to be priced cheap enough to offset the lower income for selling the old Dynon stuff for very little, and I just can't imagine that someone would have a package for sale at half of the price of Dynon, being that they have always been one of the cheaper players.

Fortunately in the US we can go paperless with the ipad.

[whee]

I didn't realize there is ambiguity about the Skyview's compliance with the TSO, is that what you guys are saying?

I think this is a pretty good explanation of EAB requirement for ADSB: http://www.faa.gov/nextgen/equipadsb/faq/#q4

[Ed.Meyer]

You mentioned the "cheaper GPS..." As I understand it, you need to GPS 2020 to be ADSB compliant, which is why they developed it. They said that the GPS 250 could not be made compliant and that the FAA had changed some interpretations of the rules to say that the equipment needed to meet the requirements of the TSO but did not need to be TSO'ed. There have been a number of posts on forums saying that the system passes the FAA test.

I have zero experience with the earlier Dynon stuff but the Skyview is very impressive so far. Have worked with setting it up etc on the ground but have not flown with it yet. I am guessing that if you made the leap you would not be disappointed.

[jaredyates]

Thanks Ed, one of my unanswered questions is to what degree the Skyview can take input from the 430w, to meet the requirements of adsb, or for other navigation needs.

[Ed.Meyer]

I read on other forums that it is commonly done, and as long as the Garmin unit is compliant then the ADSB out is too. I have seen that not all Garmin units are. Don't recall if it is model related, software or ? since it does not apply to me.

[JimParker256]

I've got a friend who is a CFI for one of the 10-day instrument courses... He does about 20+ of these per year, usually flying in the customer's airplane. Lately, about 1/2 of those are experimental - mostly Van's RVs. He says that about 2/3 of the experimentals that he's been asked to train in seem to have Dynon Skyview systems interfaced with Garmin 430/530/650/750s... The next most popular would seem to be the Garmin G3X PFDs with the same Garmin gps systems. But he's also starting to see a growing number of both Skyview and G3X PFDs integrated with Avidyne 440/540 gps systems.

He's seen some of those experimental panels that just flat did NOT work together worth a darn, but was quickly convinced the issue was that the builder/operator didn't understand or follow the installation / integration instructions properly. The vast majority of the Dynon+Garmin installations he's seen appear to integrate pretty well, and he's been impressed by the capabilities of the Skyview autopilot system. And as you would expect, the "all Garmin" systems work real well also. He says the Garmin G3X autopilot is as good or better than the autopilot that comes with the G3000 systems!

So my take-away from his experience is that even if I do my own installation, I will have my local avionics shop check my schematics and plans BEFORE I start, and do a check-out on the completed system before I go fly it. Yeah, I'll have to pay them for this, but it will be worthwhile, I think.

[jaredyates]

Good call Jim, the installation and wiring of panel gadgets is just like any other task in the building process. It doesn't do itself and it requires research, good understanding, good craftsmanship, special tools, and extra materials for redos. When I did the first installation I sat down with the manuals for all of the parts and worked through how each wire should be connected, and as I made the connections, I made notes to know which ones were left to do. Some connections were easy to understand, and some took hours of research. All of those inputs of time, tools, supplies, and risk have a real value that must be weighed in relation to what the shop is going to charge you. For some folks having the shop do it all is going to be a good value. For me, I really enjoyed that part of the project, and it helped me understand how everything went together. Thanks for the data points from the CFI guy too.

[tailwind]

I purchased my system from Steinair. I had them do the major harness between all of the boxes. There is still a lot of wiring to do. All of the engine interface, all the tie into the circuit breaker panel. The runs out to the magnetic head in the wings, lots of work but not an insurmountable task. The addition benefit is that they draw up a wiring print as part of the documention for your plane. The wiring is all nicely labeled so you can identify what goes where.

[jaredyates]

Thanks Bob, are you using the Skyview, and if so, how do you like the features of it?

[JimParker256]

While at OSH this year, I spent a lot of time with the various PFD/MFD vendors (Dynon, GRT, etc.). Going in, I was fully planning on going with the Dynon Skyview Touch panels, along with their intercom, comm radio, and ADS-B transponder. At the show, I spent a good bit of time just "twiddling" with several of the systems, trying to do so when no salesperson was hanging over my shoulder. This gave me a lot more "feel" for how intuitive the systems were for ME.

AvMap: I just can't get beyond what looks and feels like an ancient operating system under the covers. The sales folks are enthusiastic, but the system just looks tired and out-of-date to me.

Advanced Flight Systems: Like Dynon, beautiful screens, and highly readable. They were just too large for the panel of the Patrol, so I didn't spend a lot more time with them.

Dynon Skyview & Skyview Touch: Beautiful screen displays, crisp and clear - especially their new HX display that is brighter and has more pixels per inch. Tons of information displayed on the screen, and fairly easy to switch layouts for even more detailed viewing. However, I found the touch-screen's user-interface logic for things like obtaining airport information, ATC frequencies, and that type of thing much more difficult than I expected. With the sales folks over my shoulder, walking me through the process, it seemed simple enough. When they were not there, I found myself unable to repeat some of those tasks. My take-away from this was to make sure and spend enough time learning the system BEFORE going flying, so that this doesn't happen in flight. Not sure exactly why, but the Touch versions seemed more "likeable" to me - I guess the combination of "touch" and "knobs" just worked for my weird brain... And I suspect the newer "Touch" will have a longer support life (but that's just my guess).

Dynon Skyview SE: A nice upgrade/replacement for their older D10/D100 systems, and if you will have a separate GPS Navigator (430W or something) it would be a nice system. Personally, I would spend the extra $$ for the GPS and moving map capabilities in the "full" Skyview system.

Garmin G3X Touch: The system I came to OSH prepared to hate, and wound up liking a LOT... Yes, I've flown for the last several years with Garmin GPS units (300XL, then 430W), but I absolutely hated their user interface, and can't stand the way Garmin Pilot works on the iPad... So it came as a HUGE surprise to find that the G3X Touch was by far the most intuitive of the various designs for me. There was nothing I could not figure out pretty quickly on my own, without looking at a manual. Everything from engine monitor to flight planning to moving map just seemed like it was designed the way I would have expected... When I added up the total for a "minimal" ADS-B compliant system, I was pleasantly surprised that it came in about the same as Dynon. (Wasn't expecting THAT at all...)

Garmin G5: OK, this isn't really a full-blown PFD/MFD, but the low price and functionality is pretty amazing. Either as the primary PFD or as a backup system to any of the others, it would be an incredible value. If your "primary" stuff was a Garmin G3X system, it integrates even further, with one-time config of the airspeed tapes and V-speeds, shared Baro settings, etc. The ability to provide backup AHARS to the G3X (or act stand-alone) is nice, and the ability to control the Garmin auto-pilot servos is another nice "fail-safe"... Taking a slightly different approach, one could use two G5 systems, with a Garmin 6xx or 7xx portable (panel mounted) to provide the navigation data, and an EI CGR-30P for engine monitoring. Add either a Garmin GTX-345 or L3 Lynx for ADS-B out, and either a Comm or Nav/Comm of your choice, and it would be a pretty nice system with a good bit of independence and redundancy, while keeping costs pretty low.

GRT: Nice systems and good pricing. I can see why they are popular with the "low cost" crowd. But to me, the graphics (with one exception - more on that later) seemed very primitive. Maybe it's a function of their screen resolution, but all the diagonal lines, etc. on their screens seemed to have a severe case of "the jaggies"... You can see this on their own website, where they show screen shots of their devices. The synthetic vision stuff, on the other hand, looks absolutely great. If that was something that got my blood pumping, I would be a lot more interested in the GRT displays. But over all, I found that you pretty much had to switch to the "full screen" version of any of their "pages" to be able to really get the details out of that system. Their tiny display of the engine instruments along the bottom of the PFD/MFD screen was totally unreadable to my 60-year-old eyes. Not sure I would be able to identify a cylinder whose CHT or EGT was spiking, even if I was looking directly at the display at the time...

MGL iEFIS: What I saw of their systems seemed to be pretty decent, although frankly they had so many employees at their booth that I could never be alone with one of their displays for even 5 seconds. And it seemed like they only wanted their employees touching the systems - made it really hard to get any feel for the user interface. Their "Lite" system seems like it might be a good way to same money on a single-display system. The resolution of their systems seems to be better than GRT, but lower than the Dynon/Garmin stuff. Seems to be less integration with the rest of the avionics suite as well.

Decisions, decisions, decisions... Fortunately, I've got a ways to go before I have to write checks for any of this!

[Ed.Meyer]

We were strongly considering the 10" Garmin G3X until we carefully measured the size and discovered it would not fit in the stock Patrol panel while the Dynon does fit. Went with Dynon Touch and happy so far but have not flown yet.

[Battson]

I talked to my maintenance shop about this in the weekend. One of their guys has done about as many ADS-B installs as anyone else in NZ has done so far. Their advice is to wait as long as possible.

It sounds like much cheaper routes to compliance are on the horizon for E-AB aircraft, such as an ADS-B chips like drones are using to comply. It would be a shame to breeze through $4.5 for compliance now, only for a $500 solution to become available circa 2019.

[jaredyates]

The UAS point is a good one. This is a case where a crystal ball would be handy.

[JimParker256]

My fear with this "delaying tactic" is the concerns about availability of both of the equipment, and shop time as the deadline approaches. My local avionics shop is already running a 90-day backlog on shop time, and tells me that Garmin and several other ADS-B suppliers are running about the same on lead times for orders. Of course, as experimental builders, we can do much of the work ourselves, but few of us have the equipment to check out the final installation...