Cockpit Technology and Safety

My thoughts this week are on safety in the cockpit and instrumentation. Many of us that fly GA Aircraft do so out of love of flying or a need to build time but either way most of us do it on a shoe-string budget. With the price of avgas around $7 a gallon and aircraft prices in the stratosphere there is barely money left over for hangar rent and an annual.

With all of that technology out there the outrageous cost of avionics still stuns me. For that matter the general over inflated cost of anything this is TSO’ed is absolutely ridiculous.

These outrageous prices are forcing pilots and aircraft owners to make choices that are not the greatest or even down right poor.

I will use myself as an example. Recently I ordered a new TSO’ed landing light for my Piper Tomahawk. The cost of the TSO’ed light was just north of $400. As I input the model number of the light into google looking for the least expensive option I came across the exact same LED bulb that was made by the same company except it was for a garden light fixture. The cost of this bulb was a little less than $40. When the lights arrived I was eager to see the difference in the two bulbs. They were in different boxes I opened them with excitement. Not a lick of difference. I even went as far as to put them on a gram scale and wouldn’t you know it they were the exact same weight. $360 more because it went into an airplane.

So, what about the inside of the plane. I will again throw myself under the bus. I fly a 1978 Piper Tomahawk. It is a great little plane, but it would be a much safer plane if I had the money to invest into the panel. I have the original steam gages, which are at best functional, but not what I would want to rely on if I inadvertently found myself in IFR conditions.

My Directional Gyro processes about every 2 minutes, my localizer and VOR’s are not functional, and my turn coordinator works, but the flag is stuck on red, and my vacuum gage is in-op. To fix this mess would cost me between $20,000 and $40,000. The right answer would be to pony up or not fly, but because neither of those are options and I have children to feed and I wife that I would like to stay married that is not an option.

The next best option that I have is to use ForeFlight with a century2. It is a great back up in the event of an emergency and I am only flying the tomahawk in VFR.

My questions is why are these things so God awful expensive? $2500 a pop for a Garmin G5 plus another $2,000 to get one installed, a WAAS GPS $7500 plus install it is no wonder why the majority of GA aircraft are ill equipped.

This brings into question safety. In an industry that prides itself on being safer than most why do we price the equipment that will help keep us safe so far out of reach?

When I can buy an Ipad and a Stratus 2 for a grand total of $1,700.00 that is every bit as effective as all of these modern avionics, but illegal to rely upon as a primary source of information in a certified aircraft would I spend $20,000+ on things that are TSO’ed?

There needs to be some reform in the industry. For far to long these companies have made a more than generous profit off the back of GA Pilots. They have sweetheart deals with the manufacturers and get paid handsomely.

The regulators and the manufactures need to get together with the pilots and figure something out. We would all be far safer with modern and let’s face it functional equipment in our birds the only thing standing in the way is the price tag and the avionics shops six plus month wait.

Now that brings me to my next point. These new components are not rocket science to install. The majority are plug and play and much much lower voltage that the equipment of days past. Why do we need to wait months and months and pay thousands of dollars to have something installed that is no more complicated to install that a wired home network? It is time that the regulations catch up the technology and the ability of the pilots. If it was and RV8 I could install it in my garage and fly IFR, but because it is a certificated aircraft I have to take out a second mortgage.

Nick Sanderson holds a Commercial and IFR rating and is a member of the FAASTeam. These are the thoughts and opinions of the author and not of any group or agency.

If you would like to contact the author you may email him [email protected]

The thoughts and opinions contained in this writing are not that of the FAA, Any manufacturer, nor are to be considered instruction and are only the thoughts and opinions of the author.