zyttocs

I thought I'd get your guys opinion on something.

We're flying a King Air 300 with an old KLN900 GPS. I know I know....antique!

Short of installing an FMS or spending $350K on the G1000 upgrade coming out later this year, what would be a good GPS upgrade?

The only thing I can think of is a Garmin 400. But I don't think it offers a real time fuel burn calculation and I believe the TAS calculation requires you to enter data every time for it to calculate.

Any suggestions short of installing an entirely new avionics panel, FMS, or G1000?

AbortAbortAbort

There's really not much more a G1000 will do (besides replace all your instruments) functionality wise than a G530 or 430. We have 530s and 430s in a couple our aircraft, I personally enjoy them, haven't had a pilot yet complain about them. The whole Garmin system is very intuative and the fact that you can jump from one to another with zero issues is nice. And they're easy on the pocketbooks relatively speaking.

You can also toss a nav/com with a 530/430.

Plus...WAAS is a beautiful thing.

zyttocs

The main advantages with the G1000 upgrade would be:

ADSB compliance
Mode S
RVSM
Synthetic vision
and...it can breath new life into an old cockpit since it replaces all the instraments from the switches up including an auto pilot.

But even so it's still hard to justify the expense. It really depends on if the upgrades are specific to your mission like a true need for RVSM or if the cockpit is really warn out an in need of a deep clean overhaul.

I'm a big fan of the Garmin stuff (G430/G530) but after speeking with a number of sources the consensus is that short of a complete avionics pachage you're more likley to devalue a King Air 300 than you would an older B200 if you just patch in one or two Garmins.

The options that have been suggested to me are:

A single G400 in the pedistal ($13K)
A Universal FMS with WAS ($115K)
A complete Garmin upgrade 2 G530's, Transponders, G600, etc...($150K)
or a G1000, everything new and latest technology from switches up ($350K)

Back to the original question though...
What other options are there thna a G400 if the goal is simply to replace the KLN900? And does the G400 offer real time rate of fuel consumption or TAS calculations?

skydisaster

The 400/500 series Garmins only calculate fuel burn and TAS calculations with the data that is supplied to them. This could be data that is manually entered into the 400/500 or data that is automatically supplied from some other computer. In the PC-12 that I fly, this is data that is supplied from the AHRs, ADC, and EIS computers. In a Baron that I fly, the fuel data is supplied by an EDM 760 engine monitoring system and the TAS calculations are accomplished with manual data entry. In most of the rest of the planes that I fly the 430/530 TAS and fuel calculations are accomplished with manual data entry.

Formerbuspilot

If you hold out a little longer you may be able to pick up a used UNS-1 when operators start installing the G1000 in the 300/350s. I would think the price would a lot less for an older 1K or something once they become available. Check with Elliott in Moline or Southern Avionics in Mobile, AL just to name a couple.

The straight Garmin 500 is nice too but probably wont have all the instant info that I think you are looking for.

RedGuy

Our company has been switching our fleet over to g530/430's with WAAS. The 430 is nice and gets the job done, but the 530 has several features the 430 doesn't that I really like and use often, plus the larger screen is nice, esspeially when using it for approaches. I don't know about value on a kingair, but for our old cargo planes it's an invaluable tool.

trafly

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mswmsw

I agree, check out the prices for older, used UNS-1's, like a K or L or even a C. Once you have flown with an FMS with keyboard entry, you will never want to go back to the knob-twisting thing.