G1000/NXi Evolution for Diamond Owners

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CFIDave
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Re: G1000/NXi Evolution for Diamond Owners

Post by CFIDave »

ememic99 wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:49 am
pietromarx wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:15 am 2. Has anyone tried to upgrade from old G1000 to G1000 Nxi in a DA-40-180?
I'm pretty sure nobody tried it because of the cost (more than $100k was mentioned in some talks) but later on this info just disappeared so I'm not sure whether it's offered at all.
A Legacy G1000 --> G1000 NXi Phase II upgrade for the DA62 has been performed multiple times because Diamond has published a Service Bulletin for doing this. It costs as much as $100K because it also involves adding fuel gauges to DA62 Aux fuel tanks and adding heated static ports.

I'm guessing a Legacy G1000 --> G1000 NXi Phase II upgrade for the DA40 XLS/XLT (which assumes the aircraft already has GFC700 autopilot and re-usable GIA63Ws that could be repurposed for use in other Legacy G1000 aircraft) would probably cost somewhere around $50-60K. But Diamond has not published a Service Bulletin for doing this, so I'm not sure if a Garmin shop could simply order the parts to perform the conversion.

The good news is that with the G1000 NXi version of the Lycoming DA40 XLT back in production, software and certification should not be an issue in such a conversion.

For older 2004-2006 DA40-180 aircraft with KAP 140 autopilots, such as conversion would likely be uneconomical, because it costs around $70K just to install the GFC700 autopilot that's a prerequisite for NXi, and removed GIA63s (without WAAS) don't have much trade-in value.
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pietromarx
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Re: G1000/NXi Evolution for Diamond Owners

Post by pietromarx »

CFIDave wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 3:29 pm I'm guessing a Legacy G1000 --> G1000 NXi Phase II upgrade for the DA40 XLS/XLT (which assumes the aircraft already has GFC700 autopilot and re-usable GIA63Ws that could be repurposed for use in other Legacy G1000 aircraft) would probably cost somewhere around $50-60K. But Diamond has not published a Service Bulletin for doing this, so I'm not sure if a Garmin shop could simply order the parts to perform the conversion.

The good news is that with the G1000 NXi version of the Lycoming DA40 XLT back in production, software and certification should not be an issue in such a conversion.
Yes, I would agree. It would be expensive, but at $50-60K, this would represent somewhere between 15-25% of the value of the airplane and presumably add another decade or two of life expectancy and, perhaps, resale value. Not sure it is such a bad investment for those of us with Garmin autopilots, etc.
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