'obsolete' G1000 - how big of an issue?

SnoFlyer

SnoFlyer

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SnoFlyer
I get that the G1000 is part of the TC so it can only be upgraded by a joint plan with the manufacturer and Garmin. The Avidyne Entegra is kind of in the same boat. The planes that have them, many have no upgrade path any longer, and those that do have upgrade plans, the upgrade tends to be very (possibly prohibitively) expensive. But...

While it keeps working, can you keep using it without problems? Will it become impossible to update the databases etc at some point soon? Are they likely good for another 10 years?

And, at what point does this become the same song we'll be singing about the G1000Nxi?
 
That's why there is the STC option, with can modify items in the TC. I think that is what the Avidyne system works through. I would imagine that would also be an option for the G1000.
 
Pilawt said:
Kinda like a car in which all the systems are controlled by the 8-track player?
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FYI, plenty(maybe all) of modern cars have all systems controlled by infotainment brain. Maybe not an 8-track, but these infotainment systems are often obsolete when they are brand new and often cost nearly as much as some glass options in GA planes.
 
genna said:
FYI, plenty(maybe all) of modern cars have all systems controlled by infotainment brain. Maybe not an 8-track, but these infotainment systems are often obsolete when they are brand new and often cost nearly as much as some glass options in GA planes.
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Tell me about it. I have a 2018 Audi with the deluxe nav/entertainment package. It has Google Earth map display, traffic alerts, weather, wi-fi, etc., etc. It runs on 3G cellular. 3G is going away, so none of that will work any more. No great loss; a $100 Garmin portable (free lifetime database updates) and an iPhone do it all, and better.
 
Pilawt said:
Tell me about it. I have a 2018 Audi with the deluxe nav/entertainment package. It has Google Earth map display, traffic alerts, weather, wi-fi, etc., etc. It runs on 3G cellular. 3G is going away, so none of that will work any more. No great loss; a $100 Garmin portable (free lifetime database updates) and an iPhone do it all, and better.
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Let me know when that Audi is down to $1,450. I've got cash.

(even tho nothing fits inside past a lunchbox.)
 
Rgbeard said:
I see a future market for stickers:

THIS AIRCRAFT IS APPROVED FOR VFR-ONLY
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The problem with that is many of the required gauges for an airplane are integrated into the G1000. Gas, oil pressure, electrical system, even compass. It is a future problem.
 
Rgbeard said:
Let me know when that Audi is down to $1,450. I've got cash.

(even tho nothing fits inside past a lunchbox.)
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before anyone jumps on me for being mean, please understand it’s all tongue-in-cheek, and I did fit the radiator for my truck in the back of his Audi at one point. And I am eternally grateful as well.

:)
 
Many, but not all of the G1000s are installed by the OEM via an STC. That STC should be able to be removed, the same way one that is applied by a mechanic outside the OEM environment can be.

Electronics are driven by the consumer electronics market (cell phones, TVs, computers, etc.) and the other markets such as avionics suffer from it. There will be a point in time where all the avionics that are new today will not be supported, and I expect it will be sooner than most in this industry are prepared for. Something new will follow, and the legacy G1000 and G1000Nxi will be replaced with it.

I already know of at least a couple of Cessnas that had the original G1000 replaced with an Nxi.
 
Rgbeard said:
before anyone jumps on me for being mean, please understand it’s all tongue-in-cheek, and I did fit the radiator for my truck in the back of his Audi at one point. And I am eternally grateful as well.

:)
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And he's spot-on accurate. It's taken me three trips in that Audi to carry one load in the PA-32.
 
PaulS said:
The problem with that is many of the required gauges for an airplane are integrated into the G1000. Gas, oil pressure, electrical system, even compass. It is a future problem.
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this is quite true. At some point an announcement letter is going to come from Garmin indicating that they are no longer performing any sort of service activities to repair these panels. That’s going to really caused a chain reaction of very serious problems. A cottage industry will start up to repair the panels, and that will last for a while until even they cannot be helpful.
 
Rgbeard said:
this is quite true. At some point an announcement letter is going to come from Garmin indicating that they are no longer performing any sort of service activities to repair these panels. That’s going to really caused a chain reaction of very serious problems. A cottage industry will start up to repair the panels, and that will last for a while until even they cannot be helpful.
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That certainly will happen at some point, but i suspect that point is still fairly far removed from now. At least for G1000. There are a lot of them and they are prohibitively difficult to replace/upgrade even if possible. Garmin can charge just about anything they want to repair them for many years to come.
 
Rgbeard said:
this is quite true. At some point an announcement letter is going to come from Garmin indicating that they are no longer performing any sort of service activities to repair these panels. That’s going to really caused a chain reaction of very serious problems. A cottage industry will start up to repair the panels, and that will last for a while until even they cannot be helpful.
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Components and displays will be the problem, as the manufacturers cater to what consumer electronics demand. If Garmin can’t get the parts to support the product others likely won’t do any better. From what I’m told, the rapid progression of electronics and the obsolescence of parts was one driver in discontinuing the original GTN series for the new one, and that has only been around for a decade.

An indicator of what might happen would be to watch the 430/530 repair market. So far nobody has picked up where Garmin has left off and there are likely a lot more of those units in airplanes than the G1000.
 
genna said:
That certainly will happen at some point, but i suspect that point is still fairly far removed from now. At least for G1000. There are a lot of them and they are prohibitively difficult to replace/upgrade even if possible. Garmin can charge just about anything they want to repair them for many years to come.
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I just sent Garmin an obscene amount of money for repair of a 530W in which the GPS module quit. They're the only game in town. Economics 101. To Garmin's credit, though, they nicely refurbished the display and all the buttons and knobs.
 
SnoFlyer said:
I get that the G1000 is part of the TC so it can only be upgraded by a joint plan with the manufacturer and Garmin. The Avidyne Entegra is kind of in the same boat. The planes that have them, many have no upgrade path any longer, and those that do have upgrade plans, the upgrade tends to be very (possibly prohibitively) expensive. But...

While it keeps working, can you keep using it without problems? Will it become impossible to update the databases etc at some point soon? Are they likely good for another 10 years?

And, at what point does this become the same song we'll be singing about the G1000Nxi?
Click to expand...

Why would the G1000 be obsolete? Is Garmin going to stop selling database updates for them? I can't believe they'd cut off a revenue stream like that because not everyone is going to swap it out for a NXi. And doesn't Jepp offer updates?
 
mondtster said:
Components and displays will be the problem, as the manufacturers cater to what consumer electronics demand. If Garmin can’t get the parts to support the product others likely won’t do any better. From what I’m told, the rapid progression of electronics and the obsolescence of parts was one driver in discontinuing the original GTN series for the new one, and that has only been around for a decade.

An indicator of what might happen would be to watch the 430/530 repair market. So far nobody has picked up where Garmin has left off and there are likely a lot more of those units in airplanes than the G1000.
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GNS can be easily replaced with a better system. G1000 cannot
 
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bflynn said:
Why would the G1000 be obsolete? Is Garmin going to stop selling database updates for them? I can't believe they'd cut off a revenue stream like that because not everyone is going to swap it out for a NXi. And doesn't Jepp offer updates?
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DB is not the problem. That will be kept up for a long while. Parts for something with 20yo(age of original G1000) electronics technology is definitely a time ticking bomb. This is the current issue with chips for cars. Garmin would be smart to stock up a lot of parts for servicing them, but they will run out eventually

EDIT: Even car manufacturers cannot easily upgrade to newer chips. Imagine how difficult it is for certified aircraft
 
Pilawt said:
I just sent Garmin an obscene amount of money for repair of a 530W in which the GPS module quit. They're the only game in town. Economics 101. To Garmin's credit, though, they nicely refurbished the display and all the buttons and knobs.
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Don't know how obscene that amount was, but did you consider Avidyne replacement? I suspect that most go that or GTN route when their GNS quits.
 
genna said:
GTN can be easily replaced with a better system. G1000 cannot
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This has been discussed before. In the case of the G1000 systems STCd into the airframe neither I nor the avionics guy who I trust see why the system can’t be removed and replaced with something else. As a mechanic, I’d consider doing it if a request to do so was made.

The G1000 that is part of a TC might be a bit more challenging and require more paperwork.
 
mondtster said:
This has been discussed before. In the case of the G1000 systems STCd into the airframe neither I nor the avionics guy who I trust see why the system can’t be removed and replaced with something else. As a mechanic, I’d consider doing it if a request to do so was made.

The G1000 that is part of a TC might be a bit more challenging and require more paperwork.
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I don't doubt what you are saying. I key word I should have emphasized in my comment was "easily". I suspect replacing STCed G1000 is not easy or cheap. TC as you said is even more complicated depending on the aircraft.
 
genna said:
I don't doubt what you are saying. I key word I should have emphasized in my comment was "easily". I suspect replacing STCed G1000 is not easy or cheap. TC as you said is even more complicated depending on the aircraft.
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I understand what you are saying, and I agree that it won’t be easy or cheap. I also don’t feel that it is Garmin’s, the airframe manufacturer’s , or my obligation to bend over backwards to make a retrofit cheap or easy. This is not unlike someone buying a fabric airplane with questionable fabric and not being able to afford to pay someone to cover it.

The concerns about future supportability are not limited to factory installations of glass panels such as the G1000 either. I wonder how long it will be before Garmin can’t support the G3X and other retrofit panels people are installing today.
 
mondtster said:
I understand what you are saying, and I agree that it won’t be easy or cheap. I also don’t feel that it is Garmin’s, the airframe manufacturer’s , or my obligation to bend over backwards to make a retrofit cheap or easy. This is not unlike someone buying a fabric airplane with questionable fabric and not being able to afford to pay someone to cover it.

The concerns about future supportability are not limited to factory installations of glass panels such as the G1000 either. I wonder how long it will be before Garmin can’t support the G3X and other retrofit panels people are installing today.
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They certainly don't have that obligation. Short of some regulatory need to replace old G1000s they are perfectly capable systems(WAAS is complicated on some). If they are able to support G1000s for a long time that would be a really nice revenue since replacing the system would be cost prohibitive to many. Refurb G1000 PFD for $20-30K would probably hurt, but alternatives are way worse. I suspect Garmin is smart enough to keep that in mind, but eventually that option would not be available to them due to parts availability.
 
At least the G1000 is modularized into line-replaceable units (LRUs). If Garmin's engineers do things right, that should make it possible to avoid replacing the whole system when one module fails.
 
Rgbeard said:
this is quite true. At some point an announcement letter is going to come from Garmin indicating that they are no longer performing any sort of service activities to repair these panels. That’s going to really caused a chain reaction of very serious problems. A cottage industry will start up to repair the panels, and that will last for a while until even they cannot be helpful.
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no, a cottage industry will not start up. to legally repair them, you must have approved manuals. those are not, and never have been available from garmin. so there will be no way to repair them legally.
 
One issue people are forgetting is that the TC also includes version number limitations. So there may be thousands of G1000 PFD's available, but the specific version on the TC hasn't been made in many years. So when Garmin decides to quite fixing older components, owners are SOL even if it's theoretically possible to install a newer version of the same component.

Hopefully there will be a solution for this. I have bought spare parts of some required components in case one dies.
 
MonkeyClaw said:
One issue people are forgetting is that the TC also includes version number limitations. So there may be thousands of G1000 PFD's available, but the specific version on the TC hasn't been made in many years. So when Garmin decides to quite fixing older components, owners are SOL even if it's theoretically possible to install a newer version of the same component.

Hopefully there will be a solution for this. I have bought spare parts of some required components in case one dies.
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I would think that Garmin could make money off of providing STCs to authorize replacement of older models with their later ones.
 
I do believe there is an upgrade path from g1000 to g1000nxi at least for cirrus. This probably where this is headed, like the cell phone model, or windows software.
 
PaulS said:
I do believe there is an upgrade path from g1000 to g1000nxi at least for cirrus. This probably where this is headed, like the cell phone model, or windows software.
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Not for Cirrus. At least not yet. According to Garmin
 
Palmpilot said:
I would think that Garmin could make money off of providing STCs to authorize replacement of older models with their later ones.
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I haven’t looked into how it is being done but I know of a few Cessnas that have already been converted. So there is some sort of path, whether that is an STC or some sort of documentation from Cessna or Garmin.
 
PaulS said:
I do believe there is an upgrade path from g1000 to g1000nxi at least for cirrus. This probably where this is headed, like the cell phone model, or windows software.
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Seems like eventually they’ll stop the database updates for G1000 to try and force people into a $50k upgrade to NXi, it’s just a question of ‘how soon’…
 
SnoFlyer said:
Seems like eventually they’ll stop the database updates for G1000 to try and force people into a $50k upgrade to NXi, it’s just a question of ‘how soon’…
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I highly doubt that database availability will be the trigger point that forces people out of the older style G1000s. Parts availability will.
 
SnoFlyer said:
Seems like eventually they’ll stop the database updates for G1000 to try and force people into a $50k upgrade to NXi, it’s just a question of ‘how soon’…
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Except, there is competition from Jeppesen. So stopping database updates would just push all their customers to go to a competitor. Zero reason to do this.
 
mondtster said:
I haven’t looked into how it is being done but I know of a few Cessnas that have already been converted. So there is some sort of path, whether that is an STC or some sort of documentation from Cessna or Garmin.
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This is the list from Garmin of upgrades available
As you can see, for piston it's only Cessna and Beech. And they have to be WAAS G1000. I don't know if they ever put in non-WAAS(original) G1000s into any Cessnas. I know this is a problem currently for early G1000 Diamonds. If I understood my FBO correctly, non-WAAS G1000s have very different architecture than WAAS. NXi is much more compatible to earlier WAAS G1000
 
genna said:
As you can see, for piston it's only Cessna and Beech. And they have to be WAAS G1000. I don't know if they ever put in non-WAAS(original) G1000s into any Cessnas. I know this is a problem currently for early G1000 Diamonds. If I understood my FBO correctly, non-WAAS G1000s have very different architecture than WAAS. NXi is much more compatible to earlier WAAS G1000
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I believe some of the early Cessna installations were non-WAAS but that is outside my area of knowledge.

The Diamond is a whole different story. Not only are there non-WAAS installations presenting issues but there are a ton of different software versions. Some of them with a very limited set of features. At this point, I would not agree to buy any G1000 Diamond without doing a test flight to know exactly what you’re getting and how it will affect future upgrades.

The good news with the Diamonds is that the G1000 is STCd into the airframe so it could all be removed and round dials or something else installed…
 
Thanks everyone for the input.
genna said:
This is the list from Garmin of upgrades available
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That's a great example. If you've got a G3 Cirrus with an Avidyne or an early G1000 model, there may not be any upgrade path (beyond swapping out the separate GPS on the Avidyne). So at what point does Avidyne lose interest in maintaining database updates for those, especially since they don't make anything quite like it anymore? And if Cirrus doesn't build their own path forward for those older models (which is expensive and may not be of interest to them, since they'd much rather have you buy a G6), then what? VFR only until it can't ADAHRS anymore, and then scrap the plane?

There's a lot of Cirrus on the market right now and the Avidyne units are several hundred thousand dollars less than the newer models - is this why? Are people taking a huge risk to buy those?
 
SnoFlyer said:
Thanks everyone for the input.

That's a great example. If you've got a G3 Cirrus with an Avidyne or an early G1000 model, there may not be any upgrade path (beyond swapping out the separate GPS on the Avidyne). So at what point does Avidyne lose interest in maintaining database updates for those, especially since they don't make anything quite like it anymore? And if Cirrus doesn't build their own path forward for those older models (which is expensive and may not be of interest to them, since they'd much rather have you buy a G6), then what? VFR only until it can't ADAHRS anymore, and then scrap the plane?

There's a lot of Cirrus on the market right now and the Avidyne units are several hundred thousand dollars less than the newer models - is this why? Are people taking a huge risk to buy those?
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Aren't all G1000 Cirruses at least Perspective? I really don't know, but I just assumed all of those were WAAS. I think a lot of the price difference is from perception that Avidyne is old and discontinued(true), and G1000(any) is basically current(ehhh.. sort of true). Perspective G1000 may not be current, but it's close
 
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