Kobra wrote:


The 480 sim seems to only have 4 colors which brings me back to the look of
the original EGA and VGA monitors of 1985. I sure like the colors on the
396 and 496 using the same colors that the sectional use for airports,
airspace, terrain, etc.

The 480 is limitted in it's graphical display as is the 430 and 530.
The certificated units lag a bit in technology. TAll three of the
certified units predate the 396 anyhow. I don't know of any cert.
all-in-one units in the works that will give you the richness of the
handheld units on a certified box. Garmin looks like they're going
to be spinning their wheels for the next year or so doing the "glass
cockpit" retrofit (G600) and further refining the G1000.

I'm not sure I blame them. Even the MX20/200 seems to be a pretty
small niche. If the G600 were available when I did my panel last
year (and I tweaked Garmin heavily over the two years my plane was
in restoration about when something like the G1000 might be sold to
end users) I would have that rather than the 480/20 combo I have now.

1) spend a lot of money on the MX20 or MX200 MFD, a weather receiver and
terrain database just to get me the level of the 396
or 2) keep the 396 on the yoke to retain the features missing in the 480.
That's sad because one of the reasons I would want to the 480 was so that I
could get rid of the wires running about.

You could get the panel dock for the 386/486. I've just flew a SeaBee
last weekend that had one of those. Worked pretty well it seemed
(though I was VFR and navigating by pilotage so I had no reason to use it).