The locks on most GA airplanes are a joke.
Should be some interesting eBay items with no trays or connectors.
Hopefully everyone who got hit has the S/N's for their gear so they can report them to the mfg as stolen. I've heard Garmin tracks "known to be stolen" S/N's and buyers can verify against that.
Unfortunately a good portion of stolen aviation gear follows the same path as stolen aircraft... out of the country.
This has been going on for decades and usually runs in cycles. For the next part of the cycle there will be several "enterprising" owners who will also get "robbed" and which usually ends with one owner getting arrested or pleads to insurance fraud. The thieves unfortunately do not get caught most of the time.
I believe the common MO for that scenario is for the thief to find a 2nd plane with the same radio, break into it, slide the radio out of the tray and slide the first one they stole back into the tray. The reported stolen # now lives in the 2nd plane and the owner of the 2nd plane never reports their radio as being stolen because they're unaware the radio has been swapped.Should be some interesting eBay items with no trays or connectors.
Hopefully everyone who got hit has the S/N's for their gear so they can report them to the mfg as stolen. I've heard Garmin tracks "known to be stolen" S/N's and buyers can verify against that.
This sort of switch was common in the '70s, when radios didn't have databases or optional settings. An owner's radio would quit so he'd take it in to the avionics guys and they'd check the list of stolen serial numbers and there it was, sure enough. Puts the owner in a bad spot.
Just one more simple lock for the thief to pick, and then he has privacy for doing his thing. Too many hangars are locked with typical household hardware instead of stout hasps and good padlocks on steel doors in steel frames.
From the looks of the empty trays, the thieves knew what they were going after. WAAS GPS, and ADSB transponder. The name Garmin came up from time to time in the news report.
I've had access to several different T-hangers over the years. And every one of them was constructed in such a way that anyone with access with to one of the hangars could bring in a couple ladders and very easily 'jump the walls' to gain access to any of the other hangar spaces in the building.
ADSB should be the one thing that's very easy to track, right?Another reason I have outdated equipment in mine.
Our T hangers are closed all the way floor to ceiling.
The airport also has a nice 10' fence topped with barbed wire. Access is through a card-trol car gate, or a walk in gate with a simplex lock. Next to the door is a one way turnstile like this: View attachment 82764
You can just reach through the turnstile bars and open the door from the inside.
But you have to take your shoes off and go through the scanner to board a commercial flight there.
The GNS series cards will work on any 430/530, the GTN cards data is serial number specific.
I guess, I could have been more clear, the data is unit specific, you could reformat an SD card or buy a new one that would work, but my data subscription is tied to the serial number of my units. Sorry, for the confusion.
If the thief knows what a something like a 430 is, they probably also know how to delete all the saved info in one. For most people the scenario would be you get in the plane and find that all your saved info is gone, you figure hmm... guess the internal battery is dead, you put in the airport you're flying to that day and off you go without giving it 2nd throught.
Obviously you would scrub the flight, ground the plane and call a mechanic. But you might be very surprised at how many people would not do that.
Is it really nonsense? If we're talking about a thief who knows almost nothing about something like a 430 except that what they look like and what they sell for on ebay, then we're therefore talking about a thief who would not know enough to be concerned about having the serial number show up as stolen in Garmin's database. So yeah, that thief would not give any thought to the data card.
I guess that it's not hard to do that. Not a bad idea
