To Glass or Not To Glass...

The Baron is a very nice airplane and it is very easy to fly
at 85-90 knots. But any twin requires that you practice a
lot or the second engine will quickly take you to the scene
of the accident. The 310 is developing a lot of airframe
problems.

The glass cockpit is nice, but the real selling point is
that it is cheaper for the manufacturer to buy and install.
You can buy a nice used airplane and upgrade to modern panel
mounted GPS and displays for less money than buying a new
G1000 airplane.

You may need a 5-6 seat airplane to be able to carry 4 and
some baggage with enough fuel to fly x-c. Over-water. you
will need a raft and floatation gear whether you are in a
single or twin. If you have the money, a Cessna 208 Caravan
with a PT6 engine is a nice airplane with good sight-seeing
layout.


wrote in message
...
| I'm starting the process of shopping for an airplane.
| I'm thinking of buying one in 2 to 3 months.
|
| I want a cross country plane that can carry 2 people
| and baggage/camping gear, and sometimes 4 people with
light baggage.
|
| As a computer geek I'm very enamoured with the new glass
cockpits,
| and I'm in the process of getting checkout in a new G1000
182.
|
| I'm currently thinking about a 1 or 2 year old G1000 182
or G1000 DA40.
|
| Any comments from people that have lived with the new
glass for awhile?
| I've been doing a lot of resarch on the web and keep
seeing comments
| about reliability, software glitches etc....
| See:http://www.da40g1000.com/
|
| For the price of flying new Glass, one could buy an older
airframe, add
| new engine, prop, avionics, interior and paint and have
$100K left over.
|
| I'm also fighting the twin/single dilema, I'm not sure I
fly enough
| (50 to 100hrs a year) to be really current in a twin, but
| One of my standard flights is to go up the coast from San
Diego
| CRQ-AVX-SBA avoiding LA class B and traffic.
|
| This is 100 miles over water and doing this in a single
allways makes me feel queasy.
|
| As a result I've also thought about getting a older
barron, or 310 and
| putting in new engines, props and avionics, still probably
cheaper than a
| new "Glass" bird. The only downside is that sightseeing
low and slow along the
| coast is not as much fun at 150K as it is at 75K
| I'm only a little conflicted on requirements, If I had
infinite $ I'd own two
| planes.... a breezy and a light jet ;-
|
|
| Any thoughts from the peanut gallery....
|
| Paul
|
|
|
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