"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...


From what that article I linked to (WAAS Benefits Register) in an earlier
post, most of the FMSs out there are not even close to the
state-of-the-art today. Much of the calculation functions will be easily
handled by a WAAS based FMS such as the G1000 (any day now, according to
Garmin).

I would agree that is true for the air transport market (Boeing and Airbus).
The airlines are very cost driven and change costs them money. One of the
reason Airbus made a lot of inroads into Boeing's market was their common
cockpit. There was very little training needed to move from one model to
another. When you consider that the FMS is a big part of the crew training,
small changes can easily drive training costs thru the roof. So the
airlines only accept change when there is a compelling reason to do so.

That's not the case in the business and regional market. There's
competition between aircraft manufacturers and there's competition among
avionics makers to equip those aircraft. Product differentiation is a key
factor in selling those planes. So the competition drives a lot more
innovation into the products. It may not always be state-of-the-art, but
it's definitely closer to it than what the heavy iron guys are using.

Gerry