Avionics News July 2013 - 23

featured 760-channel VHF comm radio.
The 430 and 530 offer one distinct
benefit over the rest: Garmin offers
upgrades that convert them to WAASGPS navigators – and with that change
make them eligible for precision GPS
approaches, such as the LPV approach
(lateral precision with vertical guidance). These boxes cover the VHF
needs of most pilots with 760-channel
comm transceivers and 200-channel nav
receivers, with ILS.
Bendix/King and Garmin both still
support older generations of VHF nav/
comm boxes that bring modern advances like back-course correction and
frequency storage and flip-flop frequency entry absent on the most popular
of general aviation’s nav/comm systems: Bendix/King KX 170 and 170B,
Rockwell-Collins’ Microline, and older
Narco and Cessna units.
Here’s an often overlooked GPS/
comm solution that has plenty of power
for the casual and VFR-only pilot: the
Bendix/King KLX 135A GPS/comm.
Later Narco and brand-new panelmounted solutions from Icom are available – and come in under four figures.
Also, consider old IIMorrow Apollo
SL40 comm as a solution candidate.

a budget-panel builder an option to go
all-electric – and move off any suctionpowered instruments.
With a standby alternator from B &
C in Newton, Kan., installed in place of
the engine-driven suction pump, the operator can gain standby electrical power
for an electric AI and directional gyro,
such as those available from Sigma Tek
or Castleberry. Options for their own
standby power expands on the value of
flying with a second AI and removing
the turn indicator per FAA Advisory
Circular 91-75, which establishes the
legality of flying with two AIs with
independent power sources in place of
one AI and one turn indicator – as long
as an inclinometer is in the pilot’s direct
view of the panel.
Bendix/King’s KMD line of multifunction displays is another option for
low-cost graphics, since these are be-

ing supplanted by newer systems. In
particular, the KMD 250 offered high
functionality in a compact package
with more integral connectivity than
its larger kin.
Perhaps the most-advanced solution
– one priced at about the same costs
as going to an electric AI and DG, is
Aspen’s most-basic primary flight display, the Evolution 1000 Pilot PFD.
It’s not far off the costs of two separate instruments. Leave the old gyros
in different mounting holes and you
have a redundant system.
Pair it with the Evolution 500
MFD, and you not only give the pilot both electronic instrumentation
of considerable reliability, but also
access to the MFD’s integral terrainalerting capabilities in a package able
to work with any of the GPS, comms
and navs mentioned. q

TRANSPONDERS: GO FOR ADS-B
COMPATIBILITY

Low-cost transponders from Trig
and MGL both offer solutions to the
need for ADS-B Out capabilities.
The options can be installed without
the ADS-B Out reference source
and the position-information source
added later.
Even Sandia, which pioneered
electronic display instruments for
light general aviation, offers an
ADS-B Out compatible transponder
that’s compact and affordable.
INSTRUMENTATION: CONSIDER
BUDGET-MINDED REDUNDANCY

A number of electric attitude-indicator solutions exist today and can give
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Avionics News July 2013

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