January 2005
I have seen the future. I have seen the future and it was installed in a 1976 Cherokee Six. As I sat in the cockpit of N4300F, it dawned on me that what I was looking at was the future of General Aviation.
Airframe and powerplant advances in General Aviation aircraft are virtually impossible to find. With few exceptions like the Cirrus, we are flying the same designs behind the same power plants that were designed in the 1950s. But avionics have made terrific advances.
It would stand to reason that a tried-and-true airframe and powerplant combination combined with modern electronics would create the next generation of personal aircraft. That is essentially what the factories are selling.
That is what I found when I arrived at Peninsula Avionics at the Tamiami Airport (KTMB) in Miami, Fla. Shop owners Jim Prince, a virtually newly minted pilot, and his partner Nick Popvski were understandably proud of their “new” toy.
What they did was take a stock, air conditioned 1976 Cherokee Six, and turn it into a better-than-new Cherokee Six. Besides the airframe improvements, which included the complete Knots 2U installation, they went for new paint and interior in a 2004 factory paint scheme.
What they did next was to turn the aircraft into a flying avionics demonstrator.
The aircraft now features four MFDs. A Garmin 530 takes center panel and they use it for primary navigation and traffic display. Next to it they installed an Apollo (now Garmin) MX-20 display which features satellite datalink weather displayed on it full-time. The pros and cons of datalink weather versus radar is a topic for another story, but suffice it to say that I was more than a little impressed with the datalink system in this plane.
Next to that is a CNX-80 (now called the Garmin 480) the only WAAS-approved GPS receiver currently on the market. It is complex to use and Jim and Nick use it as their navcom backup unit.
The Garmin drives a King 825 EHSI, as well as a dedicated CDI in the event of an EHSI failure. This unit just came out and is available as a slide-in replacement for the mechanical Bendix-King HSI it replaces. The new 825 also includes an RMI feature built into it and the pilot can select which nav source is displayed in this mode.
Traffic avoidance in this aircraft is supplied by the Garmin 330 transponder, utilizing the TIS system. The TIS system utilizes data transmitted to the transponder from the ground, to display traffic in the cockpit. It worked fine in Miami, but Nick tells me there are presently large gaps in coverage and it would not work just 50 miles north of where we were in Miami. What it does show—that a passive system does not—is the threat vector.
Nick and Jim also installed a Shadin Air Data Computer in the airplane. This unit feeds data to the GPS, which then displays true airspeed, fuel flow and wind vector information right on the main nav page.
The autopilot is the original Piper Auto Flight II that has been augmented with a PSS60 vertical stabilization module. The PSS60 enables the selection of climb at a specified rate (VSI), or a specified indicted airspeed, as well as an altitude preselect feature.
From an entertainment point of view they installed a PAV-80 entertainment center, which allows the pilots and passengers to listen to CDs or MP3 files and the back seat passengers can watch DVDs on a daylight viewable LCD screen mounted on a repositionable mount. All of the audio is handled by a PMA 700B stereo audio panel.
As a safety feature, they installed an automatic standby vacuum system that kicks in without action from the pilot in the event of a primary vacuum failure. Unseen from the cockpit, is a WX-500 Stormscope that displays lightning strikes on the Garmin 530.
Jim, who just got his pilot’s license this past spring, has logged more than 200 hours in this aircraft in just two months! He claims that he is seeing 151 knots true at 7,000 feet; not bad for a fixed-gear airplane.
He feels that all of the capability in the panel has given him the confidence to fly from Miami to Chicago and back by himself, despite his relatively low total flight time and do it safely.
I got to go flying in their airplane and chose to let Nick occupy the pilot’s seat, so that I could play with all of their toys. As we taxied out we passed a brand-new Piper 6X. Nick could not resist the comparison between what he and Jim had created and what Piper was selling as a new aircraft.
He remarked that Cessna and Mooney were both selling their venerable 182s and Ovations both with and without glass cockpits. He also pointed out that these sell at a significant premium to steam gauge aircraft.
He is correct. Expect to pay more than $70,000 additional for the full glass cockpit treatment, which includes a PFD.
“Right now, PFDs are so new that there is no easy retrofit for a conventional steam gauge airplane to use a PFD,” said Popvski. Though I imagine when it is available they will install one in their flying demonstrator.
On departure, Nick set the autopilot to climb out at 500 fpm and he scanned for traffic while I got to push the buttons and turn the dials on the goodies in the instrument panel. I had not owned any of the specific equipment installed, but the operation on most of it is so intuitive that inside of a few minutes I was able to get what I wanted out of most of the displays.
The CNX 80 would require some serious bookwork to get maximum utility from it. The Garmin does lots of tricks, and as I understand it, more capabilities are just around the corner. XM Satellite weather should be available on the Garmin 430 and 530 about the time you read this.
The MX-20 was easy to use and features a very bright and readable display. I especially like the split-screen feature that allows you to show two different features on the same screen at the same time.
“It’s like cheating,” says Jim, who is flying this airplane virtually every day. “All of this technology and capability makes it so easy, it’s like cheating.” Jim was referring to the physical act of flying.
Having just received his private pilot license, his recollections of plotting a course on a sectional chart and obtaining a weather briefing over the phone from a FSS specialist, and then going out to fly in a non-autopilot-equipped trainer with nothing but a navcom to guide him are fresh.
But a more interesting point is that of safety. Only time will provide the answer, but it would certainly stand to reason that pilots flying similarly equipped aircraft would achieve a better overall safety record than aircraft not so equipped.
This is not too unlike what the FAA was testing up in Alaska with the Capstone project. An unanticipated result of that project, which utilized relatively experienced (read: higher time) pilots, was that pilots whose aircraft were equipped with this type of technology undertook flights that without that technology would not have attempted.
As for cost? You could do what Jim and Nick have done for about half of what it would cost you to buy a factory new version. Though still not cheap by any means, half is still half.
Interestingly, Jim and Nick point out that aircraft owners will retain more of the value of the avionics in the value of their aircraft with the new generation of avionics then in the past, particularly with the Garmin products.
The good news is that new products and more capabilities are added all the time and prices are going down. I was recently able to install a brand new Avidyne EX 500 MFD in one of my King Airs for about $11,000. That is significantly lower than the advertised price.
I have been very happy with the performance of that product. I chose it specifically because it was the only available MFD that interfaced with an analog radar system. This particular King Air featured an older RDR-130 black-and-white radar unit. The EX-500 replaced the radar display in the panel, turning it into color radar, and providing all the other MFD functions.
We took a couple of pictures of Jim and Nick’s beautiful Cherokee Six next to my recently restored Seneca II. The paint schemes are so similar that they look as if they were part of the same fleet. My Seneca, built in December of 1975, and their Cherokee Six, built in 1976, are perfect examples of how an aging fleet can be made as current and capable as anything being built new today.
If you want to speak with Jim and Nick about the equipment in their aircraft, you can reach them at 305-238-6550 or on the web at peninsulaavionics.com. Let them know that you read it here and that you are an association member.
Michael Leighton is a 3,100-plus CFII MEI/ATP as well as an A&P mechanic and former FAA Accident Prevention Counselor. He operates an air charter company in South Florida. You can reach him via e-mail at av8tor0414@aol.com.
