![]() ![]() Those who faced expensive repair bills to fix or replace older electromechanical instruments realized they could make the relics in their panels magically disappear forever by purchasing a new solid-state EFIS with built-in inertial sensors and backup battery for about the same price as a replacement mechanical ADI. After the FAA relaxed avionics certification rules a couple of years ago, products originally destined for the Experimental market, such as the Garmin G5 display and Dynon D10A EFIS, were made available to owners of Part 23 piston airplanes for enticingly low prices. Suddenly, prices for retrofit avionics have come way down and functionalities have exploded. Again, early adopters couldn’t reach for their checkbooks fast enough, while the majority of pilots watched the market with curiosity but without any overwhelming compulsion to upgrade their old but serviceable six-pack instrument clusters with the shiny new glass displays.įast-forward to 2018 and that’s all changing. Next came active-matrix LCD displays and early versions of synthetic vision, which represented an important technological leap but still were priced out of the reach of most buyers. ![]() Most aircraft owners said thanks but no thanks. Despite the astronomical prices for these rudimentary early products, some aircraft owners just had to have them. The first retrofit EFIS products to reach the market a couple of decades ago couldn’t do much beyond replacing a blue-over-brown electromechanical attitude indicator with a color screen. Over time, smartphone technology improved dramatically and prices dropped, the two ingredients necessary to attract a mass audience.The market for retrofit avionics has followed a similar trajectory. Early adopters had to have them, of course, but most people held onto their old phones, at least for a while. It turns out that aircraft owners who upgrade their cockpits with the latest glass-panel avionics share some interesting similarities with shoppers for smartphones, flat-screen TVs, laptops or just about any other broadly adopted consumer electronics product.When the first smartphones hit the market several years ago they were cumbersome to use, lacked capabilities and cost a small fortune. ![]()
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