GPS is optional, I thought it was $2995 without, and an $800 extra for GPS, but that was on Garmin's site. I guess Sporty's has it for the same price as the ESG.
http://www.sportys.com/pilotshop/garmin-gtx-335-transponder-with-waas.html
According to one of the local Garmin dealers the 335 plus internal GPS now price matches the Appaero.
The 345 with or without GPS does NOT however. But it's not a whole heck of a lot higher.
They're basically matching Appaero at the "I just want legal ADS-B OUT and don't have a certified GPS source to feed the transponder" buyers, and dangling the carrot a little higher for those who want ADS-B IN sent to mobile devices or any other sort of display device they already have on board.
Garmin got real serious about whacking their competition over the head around SnF time this year, I think.
Probably because the number of installed ADS-B units compared to the number of aircraft that will need them by 2020, is pretty dismal. People were simply waiting it out, and Garmin nor the installers want the mad rush in 2019.
Not even half of the available $500 FAA rebates have been claimed yet, and the number of available rebates was considerably below the number of aircraft expected to need the gear by 2020.
Many shops now, at the three year out point, are already booked out months on installations, and don't want to hire a bunch of staff and then toss them in three years. So they've been pressuring manufacturers to come down more on pricing.
Garmin is being pretty smart about it. They know even if you're buying the low end 335, that'll likely make you pretty likely to look to them for other things in the future. GPS wise, they've got the solid GTN series (and the older stuff which nobody knows when they're really going to have to stop supporting them, but the install base is massive as a percentage of manufacturers used) and they made sure the 335 could get data from all of those.
Then to entice the crowd that needs new CDIs to put in a Garmin GPS, they dropped the G5 at a fairly impressive price point for a device that can replace a gyro, display a bunch of data from a Garmin GPS, and also behaves as an HSI, removing the need to both build old needle movement based CDIs for Garmin and also offering a gyro replacement with solid state.
Put two in, and the last gyro in your panel is the turn and bank, and your need for vacuum disappears. And they'll display each other's data in a reversionary mode if the display on one or the other fails.
That setup is the Aspen killer with street price on the G5 running $2800. Remove all vacuum gyros (or keep them as backups), display GPS info, plus digital HSI, and all for less than $6000.
About the only "miss" for a lot of folks but not all, is not having plans to drive a heading bug / autopilot information out of the G5. That for many autopilot setups currently in use, is a game over problem with the G5 for some owners, and makes the resulting panel a hand-flown only panel.
Will be interesting to see how Garmin addresses that. Will they hack a heading bug and some sort of output of heading bug and DG information out of the G5 later on? Make a G6 (or whatever they want to call it)?
For a hand-flown panel, any Garmin IFR GPS, the 335/345, and one or two G5s comes in at a "not stellar but not insane" price point, for avionics anyway. The G5 in particular dumps a LOT of cranky mechanical components in a very small and reasonably priced package, when compared to a traditional HSI or CDI and really shines at replacing both at the same time.
If... it works as advertised. Seems like there's enough of them out there that they're at least viable and not being a total headache for owners.
Still early. Haven't talked to anyone who has seen a service manual yet. Of course.
Aspen really gets left in the dust here. Similar sized display. Can't display ALL the stuff an Aspen can, but Garmin already displays a lot of stuff Aspen could, directly on the display of the GTN series.
Fits in the same holes as the Aspen. Has its own internal GPS if needed for certain things.
Anyone think Avidyne has an answer to any of this either? I'm not thinking they will for a while. And I've counted out Honeywell/King in the GA low end market for quite a while now.
Very interesting timing on Garmin's part. Beats up multiple competitors in the same year.
