Garmin Cockpit Eye Candy & The Best Flight Club Ever?

I've been in love with the Garmin Avionics products since I first had the opportunity to fly a club plane with the GNS 430, the bread and butter GPS system for many training and entry level aircraft.  Garmin has done such a good job of integrating communication, navigation, and obstruction avoidance into even their simpler products that they have essentially become the only real player in the avionics business.  Their direct to D-> feature alone makes the product valuable, add in a great comms system with single button standby/active switching and you've got a winning product.  Those are obviously only the basic elements of the Garmin systems and when you start to drill down deeper into the GPS functionality you realize just how powerful a tool it can be.

But the GNS 430 is old news.  Garmin is expanding their touchscreen product line from only handheld devices to full installed versions with their recent announcement of the brand new GTN 650 and 750 full touch screen product lines offering a host of new fun features including:

• Key pad data entry vs. old scrolling system
• Tap an airport on the virtual map to bring up info and communication frequencies
• Optional flight charts & approach plates
• Taxi & airport navigation assistance
• With Nexrad, you can get streaming convective & lightning strike data on screen with enhanced detail
• And much more I'm sure, I am just starting to get an idea of what this system is capable of.  

Here's an intro GTN video:

Now there are many avionics systems that are far more advanced than this one, but what makes this particular system special to me, is that the flight club I belong to will be installing the system into one of their airplanes. I may actually get to use it instead of just ogle at it in Flying Magazine or something!  Which brings me to the second part of my post.

Cal Aggie Flying Farmers (CAFF) has been around a long time and on the surface seems a lot like your average FBO airplane club.  But They're not. They are actually a non profit flying club dedicated to keeping flying within reach to aspiring aviators.  They proved this to me last month when they dropped the price of the G1000 Cessna 172Sp to $115 per hour from something like $135-140 because they wanted more pilots to be able to experience the Glass Cockpit.  And as far as I can tell, it's a permanent drop in price.  Have you ever heard of a club dropping the rental price of an aircraft, even as gas prices go up?  No, CAFF is not your average club.  I checked at a nearby towered airport and the airport club is renting a non G1000 C172 Sp for $153 per hour. But there's more.  CAFF owns a Cessna 182 RG and they are upgrading the avionics to the brand new Garmin GTN 650 & 750 while keeping the wet rent at $159 per hour and donating their old 430 and 530 system to their twin engine Seminole.  In addition to that, they are in the process of re-painting and re-engining their legacy C-150 and C172s again without increasing their rent from $77 & 94 per hour respectively.  And this is a California based club which is a notoriously expensive state to rent aircraft.

Now I know that may not mean much to you, however I think it's important and noteworthy.  I think it's notable because CAFF is pushing back against the common perception among most aviation businesses that all aviators have deep pockets.  CAFF is different, they know that the aviation community is desperately in need more pilots many of which will be young and less established and need a club like CAFF on their side to stay in the air. CAFF  has managed to keep prices down unlike almost every other club in the region that has continued to jack up their prices far above the current inflation rates inadvertently pushing away many less established aviators.  Somehow CAFF is able to keep prices down while still managing to upkeep and even upgrade their airplanes.  In a word, Amazing!  They are certainly not your average flight club.

So I'm excited.  I'm excited to be a pilot during a time when innovation like the GNT 650 is coming to general aviation, I'm excited to be a part of a great flying club who strives to bring that innovation to their planes, and excited to try out the best and brightest cockpit eye candy that Garmin can make for the little Cessnas I fly. I'm happy because I'm part of a club that remains dedicated to keeping flying fun and in reach of the average aviator and  if you live anywhere near Davis, you owe it to yourself to check out KEDUs Cal Aggie Flying Farmers, I think you'll like what you see! And, my god, for $115 per hour, I owe it to myself to learn the G1000 System!!  Oh Man, and would ya just look at that eye candy!