Help me to like the ARNAV, please.

Guest Discussion
1

OK. Here’s me. I love the Cirrus. Partial to the 22 since I plan to do a lot of high/hot flying west of the rockies. I’m ok with two 430’s and a Sandel even though that might be situational awareness overload – call me a gadget guy. Guilty as charged.

But I need your help in falling for the ARNAV. Please.

The Cirri(?) I’ve been in, I saw the ARNAV as a big, low-resoultion moving map. Nice, fine. Good. Helpful.

But it simply does not hold a candle to the MX20 going in my 260SE while I wait for 2002 to come. I’ve got light-years better resolution. I’ve got sectionals, IFR-enroutes that look like IFR-enroutes. I’ve got Terrain awareness. In a few months I’m going to have the actual Jepp Charts on the screen with the plane’s location superimposed… I could go on and on. For those who are interested or don’t believe me, go to www.upsat.com and check it out…

My point is, as someone whose been eagerly following this board/bird for a year now. I DON’T GET IT. I must be wrong, honestly. There must be more to this ARNAV display than I’ve seen. Can somebody who knows, maybe has compared products, show me the light? I don’t mean to slam ARNAV, it’s good. But as I sit here and type this I can honestly say from what I’ve seen, I’d rather put in the MX20, even though it’s half the size. And use the rest of the room for a JPI engine monitor and digital fuel flow. Help me, please.

Thanks as always,

Dean

2

Dean:

Let us know what Cirrus says about this after you talk with them.

-:slight_smile:

Steve

OK. Here’s me. I love the Cirrus. Partial to the 22 since I plan to do a lot of high/hot flying west of the rockies. I’m ok with two 430’s and a Sandel even though that might be situational awareness overload – call me a gadget guy. Guilty as charged.

But I need your help in falling for the ARNAV. Please.

The Cirri(?) I’ve been in, I saw the ARNAV as a big, low-resoultion moving map. Nice, fine. Good. Helpful.

But it simply does not hold a candle to the MX20 going in my 260SE while I wait for 2002 to come. I’ve got light-years better resolution. I’ve got sectionals, IFR-enroutes that look like IFR-enroutes. I’ve got Terrain awareness. In a few months I’m going to have the actual Jepp Charts on the screen with the plane’s location superimposed… I could go on and on. For those who are interested or don’t believe me, go to www.upsat.com and check it out…

My point is, as someone whose been eagerly following this board/bird for a year now. I DON’T GET IT. I must be wrong, honestly. There must be more to this ARNAV display than I’ve seen. Can somebody who knows, maybe has compared products, show me the light? I don’t mean to slam ARNAV, it’s good. But as I sit here and type this I can honestly say from what I’ve seen, I’d rather put in the MX20, even though it’s half the size. And use the rest of the room for a JPI engine monitor and digital fuel flow. Help me, please.

Thanks as always,

Dean

3

My point is, as someone whose been eagerly following this board/bird for a year now. I DON’T GET IT. I must be wrong, honestly. There must be more to this ARNAV display than I’ve seen. Can somebody who knows, maybe has compared products, show me the light? I don’t mean to slam ARNAV, it’s good. But as I sit here and type this I can honestly say from what I’ve seen, I’d rather put in the MX20, even though it’s half the size. And use the rest of the room for a JPI engine monitor and digital fuel flow. Help me, please.

You’re right on all counts. I think this shows the painful facts that (a) aircraft development cycles are far longer than for avionics & electronics; (b) the FAA and the realitites of trying to make a profit on low volume production make it extremely difficult to change something like this once it’s set in place.

Those of us who have been among the Cirrus Faithful since 1998 or earlier will recall that originally the avionics suite was to have been Trimble! Yuck. Thank goodness Trimble decided they couldn’t compete and/or make a profit in GA avionics and bowed out, and Cirrus turned to Garmin. The $2500 price increase was worth every cent.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the ARNAV display which was (at least nearly) state-of-the-art 3-4 years ago is now as old as that milk you left sitting by the radiator this morning when you went out to fly. Dean’s questions are properly directed to ARNAV who have failed dismally to remain competitive with this product. In this sense ARNAV has let down THEIR customers (Cirrus among them). I imagine Cirrus would be happy to switch if there were another product that could be substituted without major redesign of the panel landscape and wiring.
While I certainly would prefer the likes of an UPSAT MX20, the ARNAV is at least functional, and I think Cirrus has made the right business decision to focus on getting good quality planes out the door for now and worry about this kind of thing later. After all, in another 3-4 years the MX20 will have been superceded (or updated) too.

Owners can likely trade out the display themselves if they really want to do so. If the ARNAV can at least display engine analysis info by the time my SR22 is delivered, I myself will be satisfied. For a while…

4

Right questions, right issues. Discussed on the board off and on. My view after 200+ hours in N144CD:

The location is great, but the data on it doesn’t really merit looking at it too frequently. For the Europeans: The ARNAV database for Europe stinks. Situational awareness is compromised, as you have to reconcile all the data all the time and reject the ARNAV as papermaps and the Garmins have the majority vote…

SO:

EITHER Cirrus: replace the first Garmin 430 with the 530 which gets you the bigger screen and TCAS/Stormscope opportunities and give me back the real estate to put useful stuff in (like an ADF, which is still ever so popular in the European IFR world)

OR make it really useful by plugging in a motherboard that runs some flavor of Windows, a CD drive and make the whole thing programmable from a laptop to set up maps etc. Engine parameter monitoring is a nobrainer already, but ARNAV keeps dragging their heels I suspect.

Love the Cirrus and the ARNAV came bundled with it, so we’ll have to live with it.

Cheers

Han (N144CD at EHLE)

OK. Here’s me. I love the Cirrus. Partial to the 22 since I plan to do a lot of high/hot flying west of the rockies. I’m ok with two 430’s and a Sandel even though that might be situational awareness overload – call me a gadget guy. Guilty as charged.

But I need your help in falling for the ARNAV. Please.

The Cirri(?) I’ve been in, I saw the ARNAV as a big, low-resoultion moving map. Nice, fine. Good. Helpful.

But it simply does not hold a candle to the MX20 going in my 260SE while I wait for 2002 to come. I’ve got light-years better resolution. I’ve got sectionals, IFR-enroutes that look like IFR-enroutes. I’ve got Terrain awareness. In a few months I’m going to have the actual Jepp Charts on the screen with the plane’s location superimposed… I could go on and on. For those who are interested or don’t believe me, go to www.upsat.com and check it out…

My point is, as someone whose been eagerly following this board/bird for a year now. I DON’T GET IT. I must be wrong, honestly. There must be more to this ARNAV display than I’ve seen. Can somebody who knows, maybe has compared products, show me the light? I don’t mean to slam ARNAV, it’s good. But as I sit here and type this I can honestly say from what I’ve seen, I’d rather put in the MX20, even though it’s half the size. And use the rest of the room for a JPI engine monitor and digital fuel flow. Help me, please.

Thanks as always,

Dean

5

OK. Here’s me. I love the Cirrus. Partial to the 22 since I plan to do a lot of high/hot flying west of the rockies. I’m ok with two 430’s and a Sandel even though that might be situational awareness overload – call me a gadget guy. Guilty as charged.

But I need your help in falling for the ARNAV. Please.

The Cirri(?) I’ve been in, I saw the ARNAV as a big, low-resoultion moving map. Nice, fine. Good. Helpful.

But it simply does not hold a candle to the MX20 going in my 260SE while I wait for 2002 to come. I’ve got light-years better resolution. I’ve got sectionals, IFR-enroutes that look like IFR-enroutes. I’ve got Terrain awareness. In a few months I’m going to have the actual Jepp Charts on the screen with the plane’s location superimposed… I could go on and on. For those who are interested or don’t believe me, go to www.upsat.com and check it out…

My point is, as someone whose been eagerly following this board/bird for a year now. I DON’T GET IT. I must be wrong, honestly. There must be more to this ARNAV display than I’ve seen. Can somebody who knows, maybe has compared products, show me the light? I don’t mean to slam ARNAV, it’s good. But as I sit here and type this I can honestly say from what I’ve seen, I’d rather put in the MX20, even though it’s half the size. And use the rest of the room for a JPI engine monitor and digital fuel flow. Help me, please.

Thanks as always,

Dean

I just looked at the site on arnav.They say engine monirting is availble.The itims I would realy like to see by the time I get mine mid sumer I hope.Is tcad And fuel flow I have had these in my last trinidad they are so helpful.Its realy cool to know a airplane is there before the controler even tells you.And for coming into the airposrt area to know how many planse to dodge.As far as arnav if in your business had 500 units sold and cirus cant change products ,paper work tooling other itimes that cost money might slow production more.And it cost more money witch is tite. I see it as arnav doesnt have the incentive so we all must let them know .I did today I sent a letter.Ian Said they want more products to be there for us they sell them with a mark up why would they not WAnt to. and it makes the airplane more usful.And saver for us I trust his saying of this.So i say lets get on arnav on this push them FRom Don 215

6

Didn’t realize just how much this had already been discussed. Didn’t mean to bring up an issue that is probably a dead-horse to many of you.

Let me simplify to this: Has anything great/new/exciting happened on this front since last year?

Any indications there is a change in the wind>

Dean

7

Right questions, right issues. Discussed on the board off and on. My view after 200+ hours in N144CD:

The location is great, but the data on it doesn’t really merit looking at it too frequently. For the Europeans: The ARNAV database for Europe stinks. Situational awareness is compromised, as you have to reconcile all the data all the time and reject the ARNAV as papermaps and the Garmins have the majority vote…

To which I can add AMEN! Not only does the ARNAV have a bigger footprint than it should for its usefulness, but the damn database still continues errors! I have found it contains USA terrain errors. It tells you of mountain peaks that do not exist. The latest is an 8800 peak east of Palm Springs that is NOT there. Come on ARNAV a little quality checking would be in order. It should have been obvious when the “sector” map shows something like 4.7 for sector terrain clearance and then has a terrain peak of 8800.

The ARNAV is NOT for IFR navigation but for reference … I’m with Han … give me windows, a CD and keyboard or ?

8

Did you guys realize that UPS Aviation Technologies has an STC to install a MX20 in a SR20. I think a neat combination would be to replace the ARNAV with an MX20 and a Garmin 530.

If people start changing out avionics on there own, I would bet other companies would get STC’s for their MFD’s installed in SR’s.

Bernie

9

Interesting. Do you have their website URL by any chance?

HK

Did you guys realize that UPS Aviation Technologies has an STC to install a MX20 in a SR20. I think a neat combination would be to replace the ARNAV with an MX20 and a Garmin 530.

If people start changing out avionics on there own, I would bet other companies would get STC’s for their MFD’s installed in SR’s.

Bernie

10

Here are the STC’s for the SR20 that were found by searching the FAA site
http://av-info.faa.gov/stc/

STCNumber SA02154AK
Manufacturer CIRRUS DESIGN CORP
MakeModel SR20
TCNumber A00009CH
Description Installation of the UPS Aviation Technologies, Inc, Apollo MX20 multi-function display, P/N 430-0270-500.
Status Amended 12/21/00
ACO NM-S
STCHolder UPS Aviation Technologies

2345 Turner Road, S.E.

Salem OREGON 97309 UNITED STATES

STCNumber SA593CH
Manufacturer CIRRUS DESIGN CORP
MakeModel SR20
TCNumber A00009CH
Description Install Unison SlickSTART tm magneto booster system.
Status Amended 4/20/00
ACO CE-C
STCHolder Unison Industires

530 Blackhawk Park Avenue

Rockford ILLINOIS 61104 UNITED STATES

and here is the URL for MX20

http://www.upsavtech.com/mx20des.html