"certified' parts

You must buy the parts from an aviation source. Someone
brought up that landing lights can be bought cheaper at
automotive supply stores than from aviation outlets at a
fraction of the cost. The FAA wouldn't hear of it.

Indeed. That's why the FAA doesn't hear of it, even though everyone
does it.

All preventative maintenance must be logged, including
updating the database on your GPS unit. So, if you
have updated your GPS database and did not log it, you're
not airworthy. This one caught a lot of pilots.

An FAA guy has to say this. He can't go around saying that you don't
have to follow the rules. However, I'd be very surprised if you can
find anyone who has been busted for not logging database updates on
their GPS. (Someone will now pop-up and repeat the nonsence about how
not logging it will void your insurance...)

All preventative maintenance must be logged, including
updating the database on your GPS unit. So, if you
have updated your GPS database and did not log it, you're
not airworthy. This one caught a lot of pilots.

However, you don't have to update your database to be legal. This is per a
briefing we received from the FAA last month.

What is true is that you must be able to verify the latitude and longitude
of any waypoint you use for navigation.

So, if you checked the latitude and longitude of your GPS nav fixes by hand
before flight, even if your database is out of date, you can still use the
GPS for navigation.

Paul Missman

Paul Missman wrote:
All preventative maintenance must be logged, including
updating the database on your GPS unit. So, if you
have updated your GPS database and did not log it, you're
not airworthy. This one caught a lot of pilots.


However, you don't have to update your database to be legal. This is per a
briefing we received from the FAA last month.

What is true is that you must be able to verify the latitude and longitude
of any waypoint you use for navigation.

So, if you checked the latitude and longitude of your GPS nav fixes by hand
before flight, even if your database is out of date, you can still use the
GPS for navigation.

Some supplemental POHs require a current database for conducting a GPS
instrument approach. I'd be very surprised if that weren't considered a
violation of the airworthiness certificate if your supplemental POH has that
wording.

Maybe you intentionally made a distinction between approaches and "navigation"?

DGB

As Dave says, this depends on the GPS and the associated AFM
supplement.

ISTR that Garmin allows you to check the waypoints, whereas King does
not.