"C Kingsbury" wrote in message
link.net...

"Al Marzo" wrote in message
...
On 8 Oct 2004 20:58:55 -0700, (Doug)
wrote:

Not sure if that's entirely true. Another way to put it is that
Garmin will support their product as long as they can turn a profit
that is acceptable to the fat cats on top. How many of the portable

I actually like the Apollo GX units best out of all of these, but the
support factor really worries me. Though Jeppesen has every incentive to
keep selling database updates, Garmin also has plenty of incentives to
make
supporting them a low priority. Likewise the Garmin first-gen boxes. I can
imagine them at some point saying, we won't support this anymore, but
we'll
give you $500 off a new GNS-XXX or a year of free database updates if you
trade it in.

Garmin doesn't really have to compete too much right now. They've lapped
King in terms of panel-mount GPS and even nailed Avidyne to the wall on
glass panels. After all, while the G-1000 is an all-garmin product, the
Entegra always seems to come with Garmin radios. So they don't even need
to
buy that one out like they did Apollo.

-cwk.

I do have experience with Jeppesen support and it seems very good. I have a
Trimble (remember them) TLN-2000 panel mount combo GPS/Loran. Think I bought
it in 1994 and still can get data base cards from Jeppesen even though
Trimble has gotten out of the general aviation market (liability perhaps?).
I haven't gotten an replacement GPS yet because it would require from the
ground up installation. None of the existing interfaces (antennas,
autopilot, trays, etc) could be reused. Have Garmin 196 for mapping and non
GPS instrument install for instrument flight.

All that being said I don't think I could get a decent IFR certified GPS
installed and interfaced to my autopilot (STEC 50) for less than 10K.
Probably would be more.
Howard C182P

Howard


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