ARROW INVESTMENT

MARK writes:

I HAVE INSTALLED THE FOLLOWING IN MY 1975 ARROW.
GARMIN 430, GARMIN 340, GARMIN 327 TRANS AND GDL FOR WEATHER DATALINK. I
AM REMOVING MY ADF, DME,. AM I THROWING TO MUCH AWAY ON THIS ARROW? IT
HAS 4400 TOTAL TIME

Mark, hit the CAPS LOCK button before typing quite so much. We call it
"shouting", and it should be avoided unless intentional.

Re your query - it depends. I have an Arrow, and would love to have that
panel in my plane. I plan to keep my plane for years, so am not overly
concerned about the investment in my panel. If you were going to sell your
plane next year, you might hold onto the ADF and DME, and put them
back in (with another nav/com) and pull the new stuff out. That way, you
can put the Garmin stuff into another plane.

The Piper Owner Society had an Arrow on the cover a few months ago. A 1972
Arrow, owned by the #2 guy at Autodesk, the makers of AutoCAD. He had done
-everything- to that plane and its panel. It's still not a "new" Piper,
but he has it just the way he wants it. Definitely overkill for most
people, but customizing is a passion for some people. If you are happy
with your upgrades, that's super.

Best of luck!

-Jack
http://world.std.com/~jmac/Arrowprofile.jpg

On 17-Mar-2004, Jack Cunniff wrote:

Re your query - it depends. I have an Arrow, and would love to have that
panel in my plane. I plan to keep my plane for years, so am not overly
concerned about the investment in my panel. If you were going to sell your

plane next year, you might hold onto the ADF and DME, and put them
back in (with another nav/com) and pull the new stuff out. That way, you
can put the Garmin stuff into another plane.


I, too, have an Arrow, a '79 Arrow IV. I agree with Jack that if you like
the airplane, and it meets your needs, then an investment in avionics
upgrades makes sense. This is particularly true if (a) you fly a lot of
IFR, and (b) you plan on keeping the airplane a while. Just remember that
you will recover very little of that investment if and when you sell the
plane.

By the way, as long as you have your checkbook open, and if you do in fact
fly IFR a lot, then I'd strongly recomment that you get an electric backup
AI or a backup vacuum system. All the fancy radios won't help much if you
can't keep the airplane upright and flying straight after a vacuum pump
failure.
--
-Elliott Drucker