It was exciting to learn this week that Cessna is finally updating their avionics suite on the Skylane and Stationair and interesting that they are abandoning the Bendix/King brand. Obviously, Garmin must be providing a better and likely lower cost alternative to the Honeywell APEX system. When Honeywell originally announced that they were developing the APEX suite several years ago they maintained, somewhat arrogantly I thought, that it would only be available in new production aircaft. Well now they are marketing their sytem as APEX/R, the ""R" standing for retrofit. And what happened to the King name? Do you think Honeywell hired some former Raytheon employees, the same ones that thought no one would notice if they dropped the Beechcraft name? King and Bendix have long enjoyed a well deserved reputation for producing quality avionics, but it wasn't that many years ago that Honeywell was best know for making thermostats. Since Honeywell acquired these brands the competition, notably Garmin, has been gobbeling up their market share. And now Honeywell has lost Bendix/King's largest new aircraft account with Cessna's defection to the Garmin camp.
All Comments
This is the first time that I've even heard of APEX. Of course, Honeywell still is supplying Cessna with avionics, for those aircraft that are equipped with Nav I and Nav II options. However, I suspect that if Garmin is supplying the G-1000 system, then the change to all Garmin will be coming on later.
The other thing that I find interesting is that Garmin has now acquired UPS-AT. If it combines technologies, then I can expect to see a revolution in avionics in the upcoming years. ADB-S could be a real world reality within a decade.
Now, if we could just get engine and airframe designers to move into this century!
Gary
ADS-B is comming, we would have it already but there is a holdup with the UAT transmitter, I guess there are still some bugs that they are working out.
Anyway, garmin sent us a CNX-80 w/ADS-B MFD trainer unit($14,000 worth of electronics), and I must say that the ADS-B and the MX-20 are pretty awesome. The only thing I don't care for is the transponder on the CNX-80, there's simply too many steps to punch in a code, unlike a nice garmin transponder where it's only going to take you 4 buttons to put in a code. Other than that thoug, the terrain overlays, the fact that you'll see radar targets from center(dependant on several factors), the chart overlays, etc, are pretty amazing.
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On 11/23/2003 10:54:40 AM GaryCurran wrote:
Now, if we could just get engine and airframe designers to move into this century!
Gary
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They have, Gary. They're called the Cirrus SR20, SR22, the Lancair Columbia, the Diamond DA-40, the Extra 400 and, soon, the 500. All are fast and efficient. None have vacuum pumps. Most have glass panels. Plus, excepting Extra, they've rendered the complex technology of retractable landing gear obsolete.
OTOH, you're spot on regarding engines but some very promising new designs are beyond the speculation phase. My non-pilot friends seem shocked when I tell them my Cruisemaster is powered by a WWII war surplus engine: the O-435A2. Ask my mechanic, though, and he'll describe it as, "The same as any Lycoming except parts are harder to find." Yup, it's been awhile since anything new came along in this category :)
Jonathan
Jonathan,
Agreed that the Cirrus and Lancair, as well as Diamond are making some great planes. Hopefully they will force American aircraft designers to follow suit much as the Japanese automobile manufacturers of the 70's and 80's forced U.S. auto designers to get on the ball.
I think the largest thing we have to look forward to is widespread use of FADEC, but more importantly, moving to a new fuel supply...Jet A. Yes, turbines on our Skyhawks would be awesome, but impractical. No, I'm speaking of diesel! SMA is leading the way there. Lycoming and Continental need to get on that bandwagon big time, and now, before they become like King Avionics, and get left in the dust...errrr, diesel fumes!
Gary
6 years later what all you guys were talking about is as popular as roofs. The engines are getting more and more diesel but they're still old stuff. In the world of computers, by the time someone has time to wright about something it's already obsolete. It just goes to say that technology is progressing fast. When I was born 8 GB of computer space was huge—now it's the size of flash drives that are connectable via usb.
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