Meh, non-WAAS IS obsolete. Fight it all you want, but arguing that a 20 year old device is somehow on par with something manufactured in the last few years is just asinine. If you want to fly using an unsupported GPS that is about 3 times less accurate then WAAS shooting LNAV approaches with your hair on fire, have at it man. To each their own.
That you choose to ignore the "marketing materials" or discount the references I gave you is your decision, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. So to you, there is nothing it adds. That doesn't mean it adds nothing.
It's all good, we'll just have to agree to disagree on a couple things. And yeah I realize that "few" statement was stupid, I fixed it after I wrote it...lol.
You keep ignoring the context. The owner with a non-WAAS GPS and an ILS receiver. Nothing obsolete about that setup at all, in the current IFR system. Doesn't even significantly limit where the aircraft can go.
You also keep ignoring that I was addressing your inaccurate statements. I wasn't arguing to go shoot LNAV approaches, I was pointing out the flaws in your knowledge of what an old non-WAAS combined with an ILS receiver can accomplish, pragmatically.
Keep in mind you're the one who posted two approaches for a WAAS GPS that didn't get you as low as the ILS approaches on the same airport.
Just because someone says something is obsolete doesn't make it so. Pragmatically, the non-WAAS GPS and ILS receiver performs as well at your chosen example airport as your WAAS GPS. For less than 1/3 the price tag. Way less. About $7000 less.
That's 107 hours aloft in my airplane in fuel costs. (56 hours aloft if all maintenance and hangar is included.)
A GTN 650 plus GTX 345 installed is 308 hours worth of fuel. (160 hours aloft all-in.)
That's a lot of money to gain 1000 airports if someone has been successfully and safely going to destinations for decades with a VOR and ILS receiver.
Or put it another way...
$20,000 for a GTN and GTX, and let's say you're the typical owner right at that "magic" 100 hours a year to make owning worthwhile. Let's say you plan on keeping the airplane 5 more years before selling it. Heck, call it ten.
Keep the airplane a decade, the GPS and a transponder cost you $20/flight hour. Sound cost effective if you already have an older GPS and ILS on board?
Love the newer toys, but waving hands and saying "obsolete" doesn't make the older ones actually any less useful. Only the manufacturers have done that by not supporting their products.
By forcing no support, the manufacturers are also forcing a depreciation schedule that rivals the engine on the aircraft itself. I think it's completely normal and acceptable for someone who's last round of avionics lasted them two engines, and 40 years, to expect their current stuff to be supported for one engine and 20 years.
That's a 100% increase in avionics costs in the overall aircraft operaring and maintenance budget, not including subscriptions to feed the avionics that didn't need annual subscriptions to operate properly the past.
That probably pushes it to a 125% operating cost increase over the previous avionics with ground based systems over the typical 2000 TBO.
Now apply that math to the owner of an already paid for older GPS. 125% operating cost increase over 2000 hours and then throw it away and do it again? To gain 1000 approaches and nothing enroute?
I can see easily where the foundation is laid to be pretty mad at Garmin for not supporting the units longer.
We'll still do it to our airplane, but "ten years and dead" is too short for stuff that used to last at least 20.
