Ron Natalie wrote:
In 10 years I suspect the 480 will be as obsolete as the King
Nav/Com's it replaced.

Do you think the 430 has any better life expectancy. The thing
is already nearing obsolescence.

I work in a software development group. My employer is a large corporation
which has a history of acquiring other software companies. The group I'm
in has people and code from several different acquired companies. Our goal
is to take the best from all of them and end up with something which is
better than any of the ingredients.

My group's motto is "Don't name the farm animals". If you fall in love
with the cute little calf you grew up with, sooner or later you're going to
be devastated when you discover that it's been chopped up, made into
hamburger, and served to you for dinner.

The 480 is indeed a great box. I love the box. But, when you look at in
comparison to the 430/530 line, here's where it shakes out in my mind.

480: WAAS, airway database
430: Easier UI to learn

If Garmin has any brains (and I thing they have proven that they do),
they've been working hard to suppress any internal turf wars. It's bound
to happen, of course. Both the 430 and the 480 are wonderful products, and
their software development teams both have a right to be proud of their
accomplishments. But, the goal of the company (and I'm sure they knew this
before they shook hands on the buyout) has to be to do what's best for the
company in the long run. And that can't be maintaining two overlapping
product lines forever. It just doesn't make sense.

It's clear that Garmin is getting WAAS into the 430. They may be behind
schedule, but they'll get there. That leaves the only advantage to the 480
to be the airway database. Maybe they'll do that in the 430 line too,
maybe not. But that feature alone is not enough to keep the 480 product
alive forever.

My club's planes fly about 300 hours a year. If we get 10 years out of a
box that costs $10k to install, that works out to about $3/hr for us.
That's not bad. How many of us own 10 year old laptops? Or 10 year old
cell phones? Or 10 year old digital cameras? It's just the way it is with
electronics.