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Re: Weather radar upgrade on a DA42

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2020 5:35 am
by salim
Davestation wrote: Thu Apr 16, 2020 2:41 am Not sure how this could possibly be more expensive in hardware either though, we're talking about one antenna versus two GIAs, an MFD, and four servos.
My understanding is that you don’t need to change the GIAs. I have never seen different GIA reference with or without GFC 700, so I assume they are the same units

Re: Weather radar upgrade on a DA42

Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2020 8:28 pm
by ememic99
salim wrote: Thu Apr 16, 2020 5:35 am
Davestation wrote: Thu Apr 16, 2020 2:41 am Not sure how this could possibly be more expensive in hardware either though, we're talking about one antenna versus two GIAs, an MFD, and four servos.
My understanding is that you don’t need to change the GIAs. I have never seen different GIA reference with or without GFC 700, so I assume they are the same units
I think you're right but when upgrading to GFC700 from KAP140 (the majority has GIA63) I would expect replacing GIA with GIA63W (or GIA64W which requires changing GDU to NXi). However GIA's are separately priced.

Re: Weather radar upgrade on a DA42

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2020 1:22 pm
by Paul
CFIDave wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2020 5:50 pm And GWX 70 that I have installed in my NXi DA62 is also now obsolete; newer unit is GWX 75 with a wider field of view (sweep angle). But GWX 75 isn’t certified in our planes with NXi.
Having owned planes with all three radars, I'd say the 70 was a nice step up from the 68. It paints weather with much less noise so it's easier to tell what's real, particularly around mountainous terrain. That's also the big advantage of being able to overlay it over the terrain map. The 75 takes some getting used to and for Diamond altitudes, probably not that much of an improvement. I like it in the M600 because it's so sensitive that you can dial up the gain and spot turbulence a little better. I don't have the terrain suppression on the 75. Apparently for the low low price of $13,000 I could unlock the feature but that strikes me as outrageously expensive for something that supposedly doesn't work that well.

Re: Weather radar upgrade on a DA42

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 7:58 pm
by hap
Hi Salem
Looking to do the same thing with my 42 but having trouble locating a GWX 68. Any thoughts on where to find one?
Thank You.
Hap

Re: Weather radar upgrade on a DA42

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 8:27 pm
by salim
Hello Hap,

My understanding is that only Diamond can do the upgrade.

In my case they, provided the overhauled GWX68 unit.

Best

Salim

Re: Weather radar upgrade on a DA42

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 8:45 pm
by neema
I heard the same information. It's a shame Diamond cuts out our ability to use many competent shops to install the radar. A 15 year old radar, at that.

Re: Weather radar upgrade on a DA42

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 11:35 pm
by salim
I think the issue is not with the radar installation itself but rather with the structural changes required (cutting the nose and installing the radome)

Re: Weather radar upgrade on a DA42

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 12:12 am
by ememic99
It’s worth of checking if GWX70 can be installed if G1000 is upgraded to NXi - I believe it will be possible to perform this upgrade for TDI.

Re: Weather radar upgrade on a DA42

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:33 am
by neema
salim wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 11:35 pm I think the issue is not with the radar installation itself but rather with the structural changes required (cutting the nose and installing the radome)
We were told to take our plane back to London and our plane already has the radome

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Re: Weather radar upgrade on a DA42

Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2020 4:16 am
by CFIDave
If your plane already had the radome installed, it should be relatively straightforward to add a GWX70. Except that wasn't the case with my DA62:

My new Austrian-built DA62 that was ferried across the Atlantic to Diamond London was missing the weather radar option that I had ordered months earlier (an oversight on Diamond's part). But my plane had a radome installed -- no need to chop off the nose. Since Diamond Canada didn't have a new GWX70 in stock at the time, they "borrowed" a used GWX70 from a customer's DA42 they were working on and mounted it in my plane (that DA42 got a new GWX70 from Garmin).

But there was another complication: The "non-radar" radome originally installed on my plane was made of a material that absorbed radio frequency signals, and needed to be replaced with a new radome that could pass RF. The new radome also had to be painted the color of my DA62 -- however Diamond Canada couldn't get the special metallic gold paint they applied (which also needed to pass RF signals) to properly color match the rest of my plane. This was in 2017 before Diamond Canada was locally producing DA62s with colored paints.

At that time Diamond Canada just happened to have another customer's gold and silver DA62 in their shop for maintenance. So you can guess what they did: They "borrowed" that DA62's gold radome and put it on my plane so it could be delivered. Then they had Diamond Austria paint another gold radome and ship it to Canada to replace the one "borrowed" from that other DA62.

So my brand new DA62 got delivered with a used GWX70 radar taken from a DA42, and a used gold radome taken from another DA62. But it likely saved me from having to wait another month to take delivery of my new plane. :)