That's good news. However, we are realistically looking at a year or two out
then. The Garmin engineer I spoke with said the G1000 was 6 - 12 months from
certification in a best case scenario.

Garmin has been pretty slow lately getting from product announcement to the
field. The iQue 3600 was announced over 6 months ago, and still isn't in
retail channels yet. The WAAS upgrade for the 430/530 is at least 12 months
out as well (4Q04). Now that they bought UPSAT, I wonder how that will
effect product upgrades and new product development...

It's too bad. The GDL-49 had some promise, and Avidyne has done wonders with
their application of the same technology. Even EchoFlight is adopting an
improved process for their data over their arguably snail-paced system.
Garmin stated the 49 is "upgradeable" as well, but by the time they adopt
the "narrowcast" system and improve the compression algorithm Avidyne is
using with the Orbcomm system, WxWorks may be the system to beat. WSI
expressed interest in adopting their system for the 430/530, but Garmin
hasn't offered any interest, so if there is going to be a broadcast based
solution for us, it will probably be WxWorks via XM Radio. I do like their
integrated VHF / XM antenna, which would just be a one for one replacement
of my existing VHF antenna (no new holes in my empennage!!!)

It will probably take another year or two for the various players to shake
out. The Merlin sat broadcast weather system is stillborn, and they never
got certification on their box, although they had prototypes flying. I
cringe at the thought of shelling out $5 - 6K to have a "certified box"
installed, only to have the provider go belly up.

This is very frustrating. The technology is out there, and inflight near
real time cockpit weather is available in limited applications. I guess I am
just too impatient.



"Viperdoc" wrote in message
...
For what it's worth, both Garmin and the WXWeather people said that after
the 1000 the next target would probably be the 430/530.






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