diamondaviators.net

vontresc wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:07 pm

Flyboyamin wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 8:09 am One of Diamonds representative during friedrichshafen told me that it is possible to upgrade to G1000 NXi and he is going to send me a quote. (My aircraft is DA42NG)

I had talked to Garmin at Airventure last year, and they are looking at providing an upgrade path to NXi for existing legacy G1000 installations. Don't expect this to be cheap. I imagine it will be in the range of at least $15-20k, as it involves a lot of new hardware.

I am still hoping for just getting "current" G1000 system software for our non-WAAS Da-40.

I think your number is missing a zero. Look at this way, the Avidyne R9 install in older Cirrus G1/2 planes to replace the Entegra system was 90K without changing the auto-pilot. In the PA46, the cost was a paltry 150K (this was a three screen solution vs two).

As much as I hope for a lower number; consider the low volume combined with the costs involved. It will not be cheap.

Tim

vontresc wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:07 pm I imagine it will be in the range of at least $15-20k, as it involves a lot of new hardware.

Let's hope it won't be more.

TimS wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:40 pm

vontresc wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:07 pm

Flyboyamin wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 8:09 am One of Diamonds representative during friedrichshafen told me that it is possible to upgrade to G1000 NXi and he is going to send me a quote. (My aircraft is DA42NG)

I had talked to Garmin at Airventure last year, and they are looking at providing an upgrade path to NXi for existing legacy G1000 installations. Don't expect this to be cheap. I imagine it will be in the range of at least $15-20k, as it involves a lot of new hardware.

I am still hoping for just getting "current" G1000 system software for our non-WAAS Da-40.

I think your number is missing a zero. Look at this way, the Avidyne R9 install in older Cirrus G1/2 planes to replace the Entegra system was 90K without changing the auto-pilot. In the PA46, the cost was a paltry 150K (this was a three screen solution vs two).

As much as I hope for a lower number; consider the low volume combined with the costs involved. It will not be cheap.

Tim

I got info that TBM850 legacy G1000 upgrade to NXi was quoted 90k€.

Lol that’s half the value of an older used -40

vontresc wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:52 pm Lol that’s half the value of an older used -40

When you crunch the numbers, avionics and engine are the whole value of the plane.
The rest is window dressing to make it look pretty.

Tim

TimS wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:51 pmWhen you crunch the numbers, avionics and engine are the whole value of the plane.
The rest is window dressing to make it look pretty.

Surprising really, considering that most of the man hours go into the construction of the pretty bits.

Interesting discussion gentlemen!

Please join me in welcoming our newest owners to “the list”:

Victor (DA40 / N739DS) and Wilfried (DA42 / OE-FSJ). Bringing the total aircraft count to 152.

Plus to ALL the pilots who have recently verified their avionics equipment, bringing the rate up to 30%.

To check your avionics equipment or add your aircraft, please click HERE

Any updates on the topic of this thread from Diamond, Garmin or other parties involved during or since friedrichshafen?

Last week I had a telephone conversation with some experts at Diamond Austria.
I called their after sales contact, but these guys did not have any information regarding our subject. I was handed over to a person responsible for production and the only outcome was, that there may be upgrade paths with the NXi (phase I and phase II) replacing some or all avionics. There was no answer to the question, if it would be possible just to have the latest legacy G1000 software revision (15) in order to get reasonable progress without spending 10thousends of Euros. So I get the even stronger impression, that Diamond still is not interested in satisfied customers but looks for opportunities to milk the crazy pilots who have invested in Diamond planes.
Later I was told, that their statement was only related to the DA42 although I had explicitly asked for the DA40 and that they do not care for the DA40 in Austria any more. Diamond Austria cannot provide any solution for the DA40. For any DA40 related question I have to contact Diamond Canada....
So I see no progress even after 6 months of the petition.
Although I love my DA40, I am presently looking for a new bird. In principle the DA50 in on my list, but I will only sign a contract with Diamond again in case they commit themselves to provide all major avionics software releases for the next 15 years.

reinhardj wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:36 am Last week I had a telephone conversation with some experts at Diamond Austria.
I called their after sales contact, but these guys did not have any information regarding our subject. I was handed over to a person responsible for production and the only outcome was, that there may be upgrade paths with the NXi (phase I and phase II) replacing some or all avionics. There was no answer to the question, if it would be possible just to have the latest legacy G1000 software revision (15) in order to get reasonable progress without spending 10thousends of Euros.

I'm not sure what options we would get in just upgrading G1000 software without upgrading avionics. I don't know, maybe someone thinks that logging flight data (or any other feature that comes with new version of G1000 software) is great feature but I'm more concerned about our avionics becoming obsolete and even hard to replace in case of failure. Maybe old G1000 platform is just not capable (memory, processing power) of running new software. We're facing trivial problems like inability to purchase 4GB SD card for transferring NavData. So our problems with legacy hardware will simply become bigger and bigger as time lapses.

reinhardj wrote: So I get the even stronger impression, that Diamond still is not interested in satisfied customers but looks for opportunities to milk the crazy pilots who have invested in Diamond planes.

I was really open to see the improvement in their attitude but I'm also getting this impression.

reinhardj wrote: Later I was told, that their statement was only related to the DA42 although I had explicitly asked for the DA40 and that they do not care for the DA40 in Austria any more. Diamond Austria cannot provide any solution for the DA40. For any DA40 related question I have to contact Diamond Canada....

That would be really sad because this would be additional example of neglecting loyal customers and forgetting that DA40 is entry level aircraft that can trigger later purchase of Diamond high-end models.

reinhardj wrote: So I see no progress even after 6 months of the petition.

If nothing happens during May, I'll have to agree with you and then the only option we have is to go with interested aviation media and organizations like AOPA.

reinhardj wrote: Although I love my DA40, I am presently looking for a new bird. In principle the DA50 in on my list, but I will only sign a contract with Diamond again in case they commit themselves to provide all major avionics software releases for the next 15 years.

Well… I would think twice if I'm ready to commit $900k having in mind current support level. What is the warranty that this won't happen in future again?