Ever had a full primary GPS/Nav/Comm failure?

Ever had your primary gps/Nav/comm go fubar?

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masloki

masloki

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I was thinking about the value of my 2nd navcomm non-gps that drives a glide slope. It has value if the primary unit dies but the glide slope head isn’t backlit and the TKM radio doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence. On the other hand, 500+ hours of flying, I’ve never experienced a primary GPS/Nav/comm failing nor have I heard one. GPS outage, sure, but the Avidyne does just fine on green needles. And thinking of the club I used to fly, I only heard a Garmin being pulled because the knobs went intermittent from heavy use.

So, how long have you been flying and how many GPS/Nav/Comm failures have you experienced? What brand-model and how did it fail? And never experienced one would be interesting to know too.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Never, but I have noticed that when the long odds actually come in, statistics don’t seem to make much difference. ;)
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Exactly. I still would not put a second full blown nav/comm/gps in the #2 spot though. A simple nav/com outputting lateral and vertical guidance with a stand alone indicator is sufficient for my tastes.
 
TCABM said:
Exactly. I still would not put a second full blown nav/comm/gps in the #2 spot though. A simple nav/com outputting lateral and vertical guidance with a stand alone indicator is sufficient for my tastes.
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Sounds like what the OP has.

Im a fan of the DR backup myself. ;)

Bottom line, whatever your backup, you need to be proficient in its use. I see a lot of pilots who would struggle with VHF NAV alone.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Sounds like what the OP has.

Im a fan of the DR backup myself. ;)
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DR gets spicy at night even non-IFR. Not an ideal situation and one that I’d avoid in general as my flying is optional. But best to be prepared, right?
 
Not exactly what you asked but still interesting from a single point of failure view: I’ve had an audio panel fail right after landing. We had lots of GPS but not enough Comm. Quick phone call and a light gun got us sorted.

I’m in the dual-as-much-as-you-can camp
 
In a rented Tiger the GNS 430 screen died. (Turned out to be the self dimming mechanism - it thought it was night and screen went very dim - unreadable in the daylight I was flying in).
 
I’ve flown a GPS-equipped aircraft during a GPS outage. However the nav/comm of the Garmin 530 were functional. There’s no category for this in the voting. So I didn’t vote.
 
masloki said:
DR gets spicy at night even non-IFR. Not an ideal situation and one that I’d avoid in general as my flying is optional. But best to be prepared, right?
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You’ve always got pilotage to refine your position if you’re non-IFR…and sometimes even IFR above the base layer.
 
Rgbeard said:
I’ve flown a GPS-equipped aircraft during a GPS outage. However the nav/comm of the Garmin 530 were functional. There’s no category for this in the voting. So I didn’t vote.
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The scenario is, how likely will you be down to nav #2 solely. In a GPS outage, you’ve still got two navs.
 
I had an Avidyne 540 loose GPS signal while in cruise under IFR. We kept the heading and told ATC about it, but it came back online after 10 minutes.
 
masloki said:
The scenario is, how likely will you be down to nav #2 solely. In a GPS outage, you’ve still got two navs.
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Makes you think about having a second GPS vs a second Nav radio. Keeping GPS nav is more critical.
 
When I was a newly-minted private pilot with less than 25 hrs after receiving my certificate, I had a complete electrical failure in the plane, including loss of the panel-mounted GNS430 and the yoke-mounted portable device running on ship's power.

When I upgraded my panel, I was an early adopter of the Avidyne IFD540 and mine was the first install my shop performed. A mistake in how the panel lighting dimmer was wired into the unit resulted in 3 IFD failures before the shop and Avidyne finally figured out what was causing the situation (there is now some info in the install manual to help installers avoid the issues I experienced).

So, 4 failures in a ~3 year period. No failures in the ~7 years since the last one.
 
Rgbeard said:
am I reading this correctly? During a GPS outage you want two useless bricks?
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The chance of a needed VOR being broken is extremely high vs a GPS outage. Thus I’m putting my bet / choice of what I think is more important to keep on the GPS instruments. I’ll always have at least one nav radio.
 
WDD said:
The chance of a needed VOR being broken is extremely high vs a GPS outage. Thus I’m putting my bet / choice of what I think is more important to keep on the GPS instruments. I’ll always have at least one nav radio.
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maybe I am fatigued and not reading correctly.

During a GPS outage - where GPS devices do not function, a VOR is your only helpful option unless you, like the airliners I heard on the radio, cry like little ******* and ask for headings while seemingly lost.
 
masloki said:
I was thinking about the value of my 2nd navcomm non-gps that drives a glide slope. It has value if the primary unit dies but the glide slope head isn’t backlit and the TKM radio doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence. On the other hand, 500+ hours of flying, I’ve never experienced a primary GPS/Nav/comm failing nor have I heard one. GPS outage, sure, but the Avidyne does just fine on green needles. And thinking of the club I used to fly, I only heard a Garmin being pulled because the knobs went intermittent from heavy use.

So, how long have you been flying and how many GPS/Nav/Comm failures have you experienced? What brand-model and how did it fail? And never experienced one would be interesting to know too.
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Not sure where you're going with this. I take it option #1 is to keep thing as it is. I'm just unsure whether Option #2 is upgrade vs delete.
 
WDD said:
The chance of a needed VOR being broken is extremely high vs a GPS outage. Thus I’m putting my bet / choice of what I think is more important to keep on the GPS instruments. I’ll always have at least one nav radio.
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The FAA provides assurances for the VOR MON. It does not for GPS.
 
Are trying to decide if it's worth upgrading, or doing away with it completely to free up space?

My fear is of the screen quitting for some reason. This reminds me that I need to experiment with that scenario because my gtn also runs my audio panel. There's supposed to be a failsafe mode, but if the display fails with the box still working I'm not sure I can kill the gtn to get the audio panel to switch to the king radio. The 155 still has its own cdi though so I'll at least have navigation.

The kx165's in the archer would occasionally crap out for no apparent reason, so much so that the shop keeps a couple loaners on hand. One of the other club planes had a 430 fail, but that was on the ground, not in flight. Another nice thing about a second navcom is that it will get you home if that scenario happens on a trip. Of course you don't NEED a radio for vfr flight, but it sure makes life a whole lot easier.
 
Rgbeard said:
maybe I am fatigued and not reading correctly.

During a GPS outage - where GPS devices do not function, a VOR is your only helpful option unless you, like the airliners I heard on the radio, cry like little ******* and ask for headings while seemingly lost.
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I’m not saying ditch the Nav radio. IF I had to pick only one to back up - Nav radio or GPS - should one of them break in the airplane, I would back up my GPS system.

Another reason -
If I was IFR and had to make an approach in IMC, almost all airports have an RNAV approach. Fewer and fewer have ILS - if they ever had.
 
Had an electrical fire with my 480 and went kaput. Flew 500 miles from Kuwait into Iraq with an inop GPS as well.
 
Jim K said:
Are trying to decide if it's worth upgrading, or doing away with it completely to free up space?

My fear is of the screen quitting for some reason. This reminds me that I need to experiment with that scenario because my gtn also runs my audio panel. There's supposed to be a failsafe mode, but if the display fails with the box still working I'm not sure I can kill the gtn to get the audio panel to switch to the king radio. The 155 still has its own cdi though so I'll at least have navigation.

The kx165's in the archer would occasionally crap out for no apparent reason, so much so that the shop keeps a couple loaners on hand. One of the other club planes had a 430 fail, but that was on the ground, not in flight. Another nice thing about a second navcom is that it will get you home if that scenario happens on a trip. Of course you don't NEED a radio for vfr flight, but it sure makes life a whole lot easier.
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I would guess your GTN is setup like mine is. My 750 controls my remote auto panel. If I pull the breaker for the 750 the auto panel defaults to com 2. I've tested it before and it works as it should. A few months ago I finally upgraded my old com 2 (kx170) to a GNC 355. I was back and forth about spending the extra money on a backup GPS vs just a GNC 255 nav /com In the end I'm pretty happy with the GNC 355 as a backup. I've shot some RNAV approaches with it and it works great! On thing I don't like, the 750 and 355 pretty much don't talk to each other. I have to load everything in both. This is what my panel looks like now.

IMG-0945.jpg
 
AlphaMike said:
I would guess your GTN is setup like mine is. My 750 controls my remote auto panel. If I pull the breaker for the 750 the auto panel defaults to com 2. I've tested it before and it works as it should. A few months ago I finally upgraded my old com 2 (kx170) to a GNC 355. I was back and forth about spending the extra money on a backup GPS vs just a GNC 255 nav /com In the end I'm pretty happy with the GNC 355 as a backup. I've shot some RNAV approaches with it and it works great! On thing I don't like, the 750 and 355 pretty much don't talk to each other. I have to load everything in both. This is what my panel looks like now.

View attachment 110045
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Yes, I have a GTN750 and a GMA 35. I don't think I have a separate circuit breaker for the gtn, and if I do I'm pretty sure it's the non-pullable type. She's going in for avionics work next month, so I should probably have them put in a pullable type breaker.
 
Never lost just one navcom, but I've had a couple of total electrical failures. I've lost COMM1 once due to the &#@*(#$ Garmin Audio Panel failing (and stuck AOG because of their miserable repair policies).
 
Not a GNS, but had a Northstar M3 GPS blow it's power supply in flight with a pronounced "pop" followed by a puff of smoke from behind the panel.

I also had both Narco 12D's go bad on the same flight (to be fair, one was marginal to begin with). Resulted in landing with handheld comm at a non-towered field before my destination, which was under a Class B shelf.

No matter how well engineered the avionics, they are subjected to a very harsh, high vibration and often high-heat environment, and they won't be reliable forever. If you fly in situations where loss of nav in IMC and/or comms in busy areas could put you in a real bind, having some decent form of backup is prudent.
 
Radio failure returning to Lake Hood during my SES checkride. I thought it was a test but turned out to be real. Learned about no radio entry into controlled airspace that day. GPS failure on a low day with about 5 miles vis. I knew where I was so not a big problem. The distraction was more a problem than the failure.
 
Have never had a GPS failure in flight. Had comms issues before but I have two radios, so wasn't that big of a deal. A bit off topic, but flying to the airport to meet the DPE for my IR ride, my PTT button broke... the amazing folks at White Hawk Aviation (CJR/Culpepper VA) fixed it while I was acing the oral portion...

AlphaMike said:
This is what my panel looks like now.
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I really just came here to say daaaayum that is one nice looking panel!! So fresh and so clean clean!
 
AlphaMike said:
A few months ago I finally upgraded my old com 2 (kx170) to a GNC 355. I was back and forth about spending the extra money on a backup GPS vs just a GNC 255 nav /com In the end I'm pretty happy with the GNC 355 as a backup. I've shot some RNAV approaches with it and it works great! On thing I don't like, the 750 and 355 pretty much don't talk to each other. I have to load everything in both. This is what my panel looks like now.
Click to expand...

Nice panel! Is your GTN always showing on your G5, and your GNC 355 always on your mechanical CDI?

This says it better.....
Deelee said:
.................... daaaayum that is one nice looking panel!!
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WDD said:
Nice panel! Is your GTN always showing on your G5, and your GNC 355 always on your mechanical CDI?

This says it better.....
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Yes, the 750 is connected to the G5s and the 355 is on the 106B CDI.
 
I had a cryptic failure of my GNS-430W about 5 years in. The failure mode is that it would not arm an LPV, only LNAV approaches, and apparently it did work OK in that mode, but was a bit unnerving the first few times it happened. The failure was traced by Garmin to the vertical guidance board, which was replaced. So it's a nice feature to have the horizontal and vertical guidance circuits segregated, but there was no clue that there was a failure other than the inability to arm an LPV. Initially I thought maybe there was some sort of GPS outage or integrity issue, but after inquiring with other pilots who did not have this issue, I removed the 430W for repair. Hasn't so much as blipped since, going on what, 20 years or so?

Like some others here, I consider a #2 NAV-COM essential for IFR. In the event of a GPS-COM failure, I've got a separate VOR/ILS/CDI unit to fall back on for approaches. And I have at least 3 portable GPS units in the plane (a hardwired AERA 510, a tablet, and my phone) for situational awareness and/or emergency enroute navigation, if necessary.
 
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