G1000 Worth the Money?

[simon]

You made a claim. I refuted it.

You have a new question:

whether the G1000 upgrades are going to cause issues for the little guy

The "little guy" isn't buying a new plane, so he has no influence on design. He is (a) Leasing his plane to a flight school, with whatever equipment it has in it, so that he can write off the loss, (b) Building time as a CFI so he can get a job in the regionals, (c) Flying his own plane for as little as possible.

All, hopefully, at a run rate of less than $100 an hour.

The guy who is buying a new plane, most commonly a Cirrus SR22, for $500k, isn't settling for less than a G1000. Please tell me we can agree on that much.

CAP has no influence on avionics design. Sure, they have 500 planes. Have you checked out on average how old they are? Last year Cirrus alone sold 240 glass cockpit planes. CAP buys about 1-2 dozen planes a year. And all of the new planes CAP bought are G1000's. They can specially order the round dial, but they don't. That would be like saying "We want to stay in the dark ages". California Wing has 114 mission pilots and over half of them have G1000 privileges. Given that 1/4 of the fleet are G1000 planes that says to me that pilots are making the effort to transition even if their squadron does not have a G1000 plane.

I am certain that if CAP is phasing out of round dial 172's in favor of glass 182's, that it will have a negligible effect on anything in the industry. Tell me why it would.

[Eclipse]

You have a new question:

whether the G1000 upgrades are going to cause issues for the little guy

No.  That was the point of the thread - its perfectly alright to read everything before responding.

[West_Coast_Guy]

With all due respect, why discuss something over which we have no influence?

Let the industry figure it out. Let's get back to flying.

Simon, if you don't want to discuss the issues that have been raised in this thread, then don't discuss them. If you're trying to get others to stop discussing them, I really don't see the point in that.

My view is that discussing concerns that may affect us is ALWAYS worthwhile. Neither you nor I can predict what good may come of it.

[simon]

The latest update on the future of 100LL is here:

http://www.aopa.org/advocacy/articles/2010/100728avgas_epa.html?WT.mc_id=100730epilot&WT.mc_sect=gan

To summarized:

1. Friends of the Earth petitioned the EPA to get rid of 100LL.
2. The EPA appeased them by publishing an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, which established a date of 2007.
3. The industry freaked out and asked for clarification.
4. On Wednesday the EPA responded and said there is in fact no date for phaseout.

In the meantime, the industry is working on alternatives but so far noone has come up with anything viable.