The world of certified avionics was never characterized by rapid innovation. I’m wondering if it has gotten even slower now in our world of integrated glass cockpit aircraft, such as provided by the Garmin G1000. A friend of mine bought a new G1000-equipped Beechcraft Bonanza “G36” model. The list price on this airplane is about $800,000. The aircraft was introduced in 1947 and reached its current 6-seat form in 1968 (Wikipedia). A plane from the 1970s, virtually identical in terms of the airframe and engine, can be purchased for around $150,000. For a few years my friend enjoyed a superior pilot environment with the G1000.
This year, however, he is trying to adapt his relatively recent airplane to the FAA’s ADS-B system, development of which was begun in the last century and for which full deployment is hoped-for by 2020. It seems that there is no way to get ADS-B data into and displayed on the G1000 screens of the G36 Bonanza. Textron, which owns Beechcraft, doesn’t want to spend the money to certify the variation.
Here’s how my friend explained the situation:
Although the hardware is nearly identical in every G1000 implementation, each manufacturer has modified the software, presumably in order to create some differentiation. That software then becomes part of the aircraft type certificate, so each modification or update costs the original manufacturer $1MM+ and takes a couple of years. Just getting access to WAAS (already part of the hardware) cost me $10K. The FAA certification process clearly never anticipated anything as incomprehensible as software and, especially, software updates.
This is something that can be done on an iPad with a non-certified receiver for about $1000. It can be done on a certified panel for about $5,000 if the panel already contains a modern GPS, such as the Garmin GTN 650/750. It can’t be done on my friend’s airplane at any price!
We may find that the great era of integrated glass cockpits for private aircraft that began in the early 2000s actually ended up freezing those airplanes in a time capsule.
Why is there no aviation hobbyist community that can get things certified? I’m presuming that the bulk of that million bucks goes towards the time required to fill out forms, program manage, provide documentation, and run tests, so they’re mostly time. Isn’t aviation full of semi-retired, ultra-talented people? How about open-source supplemental type certificates? (Can someone get Garmin to produce a clean G1000 image, get an STI for that for different aircrafts, then produce whatever mods are needed and STI those?) Could someone write open source software to streamline the paperwork processes? (or is it that the FAA just charges you a million bucks for each change?)
Then who would hire retired FAA officials for big bucks?
@gwood: maybe it’s time for a revolving-door law. Drain the swamp!
Two things: Does the FAA charge for each modification separately for each aircraft
OR
does the FAA charge for each version of the Panel+Software deployed?
In the latter case, substantial savings are to be obtained by simply installing “vanilla” software on standard hardware, getting certification, and deploying across all low(er) price aircraft. Every update also has to be certified just once, not individually for each manufacturer.
As I’ve learned from the software industry, “differentiation” is just code for “vendor lock-in.”
So what does this mean, as a practical matter? Can G1000 equipped planes provide the required ADS-B out signal using the G1000’s GPS data, and display ADS-B in traffic and weather on a new separate screen?
Separately, your post finally explained to me why G1000 software has never been updated to display the moving map on a split-screen PFD, the way it is displayed on a Garmin G3X Touch.
Yeah, we seem to do a poor job of taking advantage of software’s potential in the aerospace world. Once it’s working, folks are reluctant to mess with it.