I posted this question in one of the threads about the Wings of Hope raffle. Thought I'd ask it in the clear to get more discussion....
and this is just a "sitting around the campfire discussion" curiosity type question only.... Just planning my upgrade budget for when I bring it home!
So how much would one expect to pay to add a basic autopilot in an older model Cessna 172 like this raffle plane?...I'm thinking pretty much any of the variants BEFORE the R model, but I don't know if that really matters for the question
and which autopilot would you choose?
A bulk of my time was flying various rental 172's .... but I never had the pleasure of flying one with an operable autopilot....and I want one.
Like everything else, It Depends(tm).
Once you start flying with one...you wonder (especially on 2-3 hr light ifr trips) how you ever did it without one before. I just did a 2 hr out, 2.3 back trip last week...reduced the workload a LOT. Fly thru layer to top, overcast the whole way, let down on a coupled ILS (watching and finger ready to push the big red button...) to a successful conclusion. The way it SHOULD be, right?
Define your mission, and that will inform which system (note, I'm talking systemic, not manufacturer, my choice may not be yours...I stayed within the family based on the #1 nav unit in the plane.) you put together. Some would posit that putting an autopilot in a 172 is a fool's game, but, depending on the mission, it may be the smartest thing you do to keep the shiny side up.
Basic wing leveler? I think you would quickly outrun that basic capability. You're probably looking at $5K+ to start just to keep the wings level.
Nav coupling? Add a couple/few/many more AMUs depending on the number and type of nav sources (and if you have to add in a new nav/loc/gs box, many AMUs).
Altitude control (preset/hold/vs/ias/etc)? Again, more AMUs.
Now...the cost of the iron to do this is about 50% of the cost, based on what I just went through. OK, I've a 1969 K model. I did a lot more (recut the panels under the owner-produced part regs), tore out a lot of unused wiring, but I had the bones (GMA340, 430W, KY 197, KN53, GTX330ES) and added dual G5s, magnetometer, GAD29, OAT, roll, pitch, autotrim, all the necessary yoke buttons, and controller. All during an annual (hey, the darn thing was open all the way down to the bones...no interior, etc) which had a few issues to take care of...so, all in all, paperwork complete, etc. I paid, for all of it, what the plane cost me in '17 ($25K, which was to retire the lien on the plane against the previous owner when he realized he could not handle it, and was happy to get out from under it). I doubled my investment. Now, did the value of the plane double? I'll let the market decide when/if I sell.
Hope this helps. Am I happy? Yes. Would I like that investment in my checkbook rather than it bitsa stuff in my plane? Like any investment, it takes some $$$ to get what you want that matches what you need to do. I figure it's not as bad as buying a car, which you know, at the end, will be worth a small fraction of what you spent, and not as good as real estate near a major city.
YMMV. Good luck.
