With all the recent talk about glass cockpits migrating to light airplanes, it has been an exciting 12 months not only for GA pilots and aviation enthusiasts, but also for avionics installers. The Aircraft Electronics Association’s annual convention was awash in news and unconfirmed talk of new products from the major avionics manufacturers, with much of the attention focused on Garmin and Avidyne, makers of low-end glass cockpits. But is the current trend in piston aircraft toward integrated systems and liquid-crystal displays really the start of a revolution, or are we getting ahead of ourselves? The answer depends on who you ask.
Based on informal conversations at the AEA Convention, held March 29 to April 1 in Las Vegas, avionics shop managers, technicians and dealers are anticipating that a flood of light piston airplanes could soon be rolling into their facilities for upgrades to the latest glass cockpits from an array of manufacturers. Many see dollar signs in a market shift that would have the owners of 1970s-era Cessna 182s, Piper Cherokees and other similar models pulling out their checkbooks to replace their current steam-gauge avionics with color flight displays, integrated navcoms, GPS receivers, moving maps, traffic-avoidance systems, datalink weather and a host of other advanced systems, all designed to make flying simpler and safer.
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