All the details are in the above link. My own impressions (not that anyone asked, but I feel like saying them anyway):
The good:
Kudos to Arnav for continuing to improve the ICDS2000. I was very pleasantly surprised to see this announcement!
Glad to see it’s a satellite system; IMHO that’s the way to go, for much better coverage than ground-based. This is significant because, earlier, Arnav was pursuing a ground-based system like Bendix/King.
By using Globalstar (similar to AnywhereWX), we can make voice and/or data calls from the plane, in addition to getting weather data.
Looks like the standard info (NEXRAD, METARs, and other info) will be available.
According to the wording of the announcement, it sounds like it is available NOW. If this is true (and I haven’t verified it), that means that they’ve even beaten Avidyne.
The bad:
Cost. About $7000 for the weather system, another $3000 if you want to be able to make voice calls. Plus $300 to upgrade your unit if you already have stormscope or EngineView. Plus, if you do NOT have Rev “H”, it looks like you have to send your MFD back to Arnav; not sure if that’s for a free upgrade or a non-free upgrade.
In addition, the cheapest plans are $39 per month, with no included minutes. So each weather or voice call will entail an extra few bucks. The Avidyne system also charges per weather unit but there is no monthly cost.
As for me personally, I would love to have datalink weather, but am not sure I want to shell out $7000+, plus $40 per month, plus a few bucks for each request in order to get it.
But, like all purchasing decisions, the cost/benefit analysis will be different for each person. The good news is that the option is there!
Steve
P.S. If this was posted before and I missed it, I apologize. I’ve not been able to keep up with all the posts the last few days.
Like you, Steve, I am impressed by and proud of Arnav for taking this step. Congrats to them for not just orphaning the installed Cirrus fleet.
OTOH unless I have $7000 land in my lap (plus what looks, operationally, to be $700-$1000 a year for service, depending on how much you fly) I won’t be able to sign up. I hope there are enough people who can afford this to justify Arnav’s effort.
This is good news. I too am pleased to see that ARNAV has not left many of us with a dead end box. I will give this a month or two to see how things settle out, but I am probably going to bite the bullet and go for this…can’t tell you the number of times in the last 3 months that I wish that I had access to real time weather (almost realtime at least) to help me make some tactical decisions. $75/month is not cheap, but then we didn’t spend $25K on an airplane either. My plane has become an increasingly utilitarian part of my life. I want it to be as safe and convenient as possible for me and my passengers when I fly. Next to my Skywatch and Flightwatch, this is a biggee for me!
Thanks for the update…and thanks to ARNAV as well!
Does anyone know if this is actually the same weather data/sat that Avidyne are using?
Their coverage map includes Europe!
Perhaps their engiineers figured since the sat network is there and will be used and they had a spare serial port, they could easilly do the software.
My worry would be overloading the graphics capability of the ARNAV unit that is much less powerful (CPU wise) and struggles to paint the data it already has.
Also since Cirrus seem to not be “working” with ARNAV anymore will everyone have to wait a long time for an optional SB to come out of Cirrus?
Either way this is good news for ARNAV and the Cirrus community.
Has anyone installed the Garmin 49 unit in a Cirrus? I wonder whether that would be a more cost effective way to get weather. I recall figures of around $3K to $4K installed for that unit. Of course, it would be displayed on the 430, not the MFD…
This IS a surprise…but it seems that the high cost of entry and subscription might make Avidyne a more economical proposition.
Well, possibly… IIRC, it’s upwards of $14000 for the Avidyne MFD, more if you need engine monitoring, too. Plus installation, which is non-trivial. (Please correct me if that’s wrong; those are numbers from memory…)
So, getting Arnav weather is still likely to be less than half of the cost of getting the Avidyne… I’m not saying that the Arnav weather is cheap, just that switching to the Avidyne is really expensive! [:)]
We still have no clue as to what Avidyne/Cirrus is going to charge us for Datalink. I sure hope ARNAV"S pricing is not a clue of things to come from Avidyne/Cirrus on this. Avidyne advertises the receiver as being built in “for free”. But most of us DO NOT have the receiver built in so it remains to be seen what the real story will be!
For less than 1/2 the cost you get the full deal with ANYWHEREMAP including back-up GPS. There are many other advantages as well including portability.
I don’t see it at all for $7000 plus…
TC
Steve: I think your analysis is right on. Jim, I concur with your points 100%! The real questions are: Is the $7,000 plus any installation costs worth the capability, and is $50 - $75 a month worth it for that one or two flights a month where it would be a real joy to have?
My response (not that anyone asked, but I’ll follow Steve’s lead and volunteer it) is that I will wait this one out and see how the transition goes for others first. I am very pleased that ARNAV is continuing to work with the ICDS 1000. This is a major commitment for owners of the units. But they still have not figured out how to fix a number of bugs in the existing system. One of the seemingly easier bugs, which I have spoken to them about several times is that in the SR22 configuration the digital/analog gauge for fuel flow (engine page) only goes up to 24 GPH. The POH requires 27 GPH for sea level take offs.
Other bugs is that while they have improved redraw rates, they are still painfully slow; the screen locks up and pulling the breaker is required to reboot; even in declutter mode “1,” information is still truncated and left off the screen; even after sending the unit back; mine still does not buffer keystrokes as it is supposed to.
When I had the Arnav I managed to reconfigure that parameter. You can set the min&max values for each of the displayed values. I don’t have the unit anymore so I don’t remember how to do it, but it just took about 1/4 hour of wandering around the menus with the help of the installation manual to figure it out. I had the installation manual from the STC of my engine monitoring upgrade.
For less than 1/2 the cost you get the full deal with ANYWHEREMAP including back-up GPS. There are many other advantages as well including portability.
I don’t see it at all for $7000 plus…
Completely agree with the cost issue. I just can’t understand why the Arnav, the Avidyne or any other MFD costs so darn much. You can buy far better hardware at Circuit City at a tiny fraction of the cost for any of these units. If they had some sort of really rigorous process for getting them legal for installation there might be some justification. But they are all placarded “For Reference Only” and are not even on the mandatory equipment list (well, I don’t have my POH handy, I don’t think they are mandatory). Can anybody enlighten me with regard to the cost issue? Could it be that it is just because it is mountable in the panel and has inputs for the other avionics?
Does anyone know if this is actually the same weather data/sat that Avidyne are using?
Avidyne uses the Orbcomm satellite network whereas Arnav uses Globalstar; so they’re not the same satellite network.
In reply to:
Also since Cirrus seem to not be “working” with ARNAV anymore will everyone have to wait a long time for an optional SB to come out of Cirrus?
I wouldn’t be too concerned about this, though it’s certainly an issue. Remember that Cirrus never supported the EngineView Arnav engine monitoring, but Arnav themselves got first a 337 field approval template which they shared with customers, and then got an STC (I believe).
My understanding is that the issue is the antenna. According to my avionics person, the Avidyne antenna will work with the Garmin. The people at CD say not necessarily so. So, I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
I looked at both the Avidyne and the Garmin weather systems at both AOPA and at Oshkosh. I have also seen the Garmin demonstration on their “road show”.
To my way of thinking both in terms of the subscription system and on the basis of the display that the Avidyne is far and away the better system.
Add to that the satellite antenna and it’s sign off by the FAA as compared to the approved installation that Cirrus is undertaking for the Avidyne and I think the Avidyne is worth the wait.
I have seen the weather display on the Garmin GNS430. To my way of thinking the screen is just too small and the weather just too blocky to be of that much use.
If you had a Piper/Mooney/Cessna (P.O.S. aircraft to some!) and just had the GNS430 as your only MFD, the Garmin system would make sense.
For the Cirrus it doesn’t. If you are seriously thinking about the Garmin system, get to somewhere where you can see the actual displays on the Garmin and the Avidyne of their respective weather products and then decide.
I am frustrated by the delay. I think the most likely explanation starts off with “were from the Government and we’re here to help you…”! What is hard to understand is how they could get approval on the Avidyne 500 and not on the Avidyne 5000 for the Cirrus.
The antenna is not an Avidyne antenna. It is made by a company called Comant here in California. In fact, I have a client that works there.
The existing antenna on the Cirrus is a Comant unit.
The new antenna is a combination antenna that works both with the UHF com frequencies and the satellite frequency. I believe the Avidyne and the Arnav use different satellites. This may require an antenna of a different satellite frequency. Hopefully the Arnav antenna is physically the same as the Avidyne so that the approval in the Cirrus would carry over. I know very little about the process of the approval except that for the Avidyne it is taking an extraordinarly long time.
Thanks for the information. I was looking at a comparison of the new ARNAV system and the Garmin 49 system, since on paper the Garmin system seems considerably cheaper than the new ARNAV, and swapping my ARNAV out for an AVIDYNE is not a realistic option for me currently.
Certainly someone in the Cirrus fleet has had the Garmin unit installed by now??
Steven,
According to the ARNAV post the signal from the satellite to the ARNAV unit will pass through the composite skin of the Cirrus so no external antenna is required. How good the reception is I have absolutely no idea.
While I’m impressed that ARNAV has continued development for the Cirrus MFD and while I would like to support their decision to continue to support it the entry price as well as the cost per message gives me real pause. I wonder how may units they will be able to sell? I suspect very few.
The new “extended range” antenna for the Avidyne weather is a combined COM/satellite antenna. Its size is slightly different than the standard COM-only antenna (if I recall correctly, it’s a little longer than the COM-only). Apparently, the size difference is small enough that your aircraft cover should still fit. You know what they say – it’s not the size of the antenna, it’s the reception it gets.
Certainly someone in the Cirrus fleet has had the Garmin unit installed by now??
Feedback I’ve seen on another forum was that the GDL49 from Garmin was suffering from long delays in delivering the weather updates over the Orbcom satellite. The same problem was cited by Avidyne as the reason they haven’t released Datalink weather and why there is presently no projected release date.