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Rob's REBVAIR Project
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Date:  3-5-2015
Number of Hours:  4.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  Panel Musings

After some serious rethinking about what our continental airspace will look like in a few years, I felt that my 'new' airplane should have forward-looking navigation capabilities. Since I have the priviledge of designing my own panel, I have the luxury of installing any item (or combination of items) that meets the FAR 91 requirements for flight into IMC. I found a way to truly capitalize on this. Everyone has all probably fumbled around with the venerable GNS 430 at some point in their flying experience. Combining GPS, comm, and ground based NAV capabilities into one small footprint, the GNS 430 is arguably the best selling panel mount navigational aid in general aviation.

The interesting thing is that Garmin also made sister units, called the GNC 420, and the GPS 400, with the former lacking the classic NAV capability, and the latter lacking both NAV and COM capabilities. As you can imagine, sales of the GPS 400 must have been pretty low over the years...who has the luxury of dedicating 18 sqr inches of panel space to just a GPS, when you can triple the functionality for a few thousand more?

Well, with the introduction of Garmin's touch-screen GTN series, the price of a GPS 400 is now lower than ever. Even more rare is a GPS400W WAAS enabled unit. But in considering my IFR requirements, I came to the conclusion that a GPS400W would actually satisfy all my navigational needs, requiring only a lowly VHF com radio to be able to shoot precision approaches at hundreds of airports, well past the year 2020. Since my panel could accomodate a 2.25" radio along with the 400W, I now had many different radio options, not to mention separation of functions (radio fails, but 400W still operational, simplified repairs).

As luck would have it, I just purchased a 400W for $3700 on eBay. With a $600 used Becker 4201, I'm fully IFR equipped for $4300....that's only $1300 more than the SL30 I was planning for.
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My 'new' GPS 400

My 'new' GPS 400

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glove box on left

glove box on left

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