Bob Gresli:
I recently purchased a new (to me) 1979 Skipper. It is equipped with an ancient Narco DME-190. I’m interested in replacing it with a decent but frugal VFR GPS.
I was curious to know what you would recommend for a decent, low-cost, panel mounted VFR GPS. I’ve read about the Garmin GPS-150 and it’s available used for less than $1000. I’ve also seen King KLN-89s, Magellan SkyNav 5000s, and Apollo 820 Fly Buddys for about that price.
I don’t care about IFR flying so VFR is all I need. A moving map would be nice. However, I’m interested in keeping it simple (KIS). I’ve read the on-line manual for the GPS-150 and it looks fairly simple. I’d also like to stick with a company still in business. Magellan is still in business but no longer makes any aviation GPS. Garmin and King will probably be around forever.
I’ve looked at hand helds, but would prefer something panel mounted. Most decent hand helds go for over $1K anyway.
Editor:
Bob, for $1,000 you can get a terrific Garmin handheld that eclipses the panel-mount VFR (and most IFR) units. You can easily make a very small bracket for the hand-held Garmin, that mounts the factory bracket in the nook of the upper left instrument panel, and clamps to the brace tube (using a cushioned Adel clamp). No structural changes, so your mechanic should not mind it being there. It allows the built-in factory antenna to work just fine. If you want to make it perfect, you can have your A&P mount a power jack right there on the panel, and make up an eight-inch power cord for the unit.
This makes the hand-held even better than a panel-mount, as you have the battery back-up in the unit, have more functionality for the money (Garmin’s primary panel display screen works perfectly for emergency use, as do approaches), and you can un-snap it and take it with you for other purposes (different plane, car, camping, etc.). That primary panel display alone could save your life some day. You can tap your rudder pedal slightly and instantly see the Turn Coordinator wag its wings in the display; it is incredible. Gives you Airspeed, TC, Altimeter, Directional Gyro, and Horizon, if I remember right. And it all works as advertised. And it works on internal batteries, even if your power and vacuum fail.
There’s not much point in spending the money for a panel mount (including external antenna installations), if you aren’t going to make it an IFR install. You won’t get the tremendous legal IFR capability; you won’t eliminate the drag and aggravation of some of the external antennas, and as far as I know you won’t get nearly the capability (for the same dollars) of a 295 or 296 Garmin HH. A possible exception is if you need to replace a comm radio too, but now you are talking about quite a bit more money (for both the unit and the installation).
I have attached two photos showing my former bracket for a Garmin 195 (sold on eBay in 2003). I included MML on this reply, but the pix won’t show up there. I don’t have photos of my current 196 mount, but it has the newer horizontal format (rather than the shown vertical format). With the horizontal (295/296) format the bracket works even better. It tucks into the corner better, and doesn’t stick up like the 195 did. I had Gulf Coast Avionics install a 12V panel jack on both the left and right sides of my panel during Avionics work in 2000. They used TSO’d Helicopter phone jacks as power jacks, for FAA reasons. They are compact and work great for ship’s power, and do not match the headset jacks (prevents an oops). The cost to me for this was almost nil, because of the other work (Garmin 340/430/327). You don’t need the ship’s power jack if you just want to run it on batteries, and just carry a spare set (which you’d want to do anyway).