Piaggio Talk

On the BT thread, there are a lot of posts about upgrades that can be made to the older birds. I'm thinking specifically about avionics, landing gear, and brakes, and the pros and cons that apply to those upgrades. There was a lot of useful information in those posts, including the cost of upgrading to steel brakes, and the breakeven point (in flying hours) of changing to the Magnaghi landing gear. I don't want to copy and paste those posts here, but I'd like to initiate a discussion about some of those same topics. Please share your experience or thoughts about how the older aircraft can be updated.

In my opinion the steel brakes conversion from the carbon ones are the bet bang for the buck for the Avanti II's. The carbon brake overhaul costs of 90,000 dollars for a full set is ridiculous. Conversion to steel brakes at 65,000 less any core charges you can get for your carbon brakes is a great trade off ESPECIALLY when you realize the steel brakes only cost 8,000 to overhaul. Not only that they are less touchy when hot and hold the airplane for a autofeather check instead of creeping forward.

On the older birds their is no question the Garmin panel glass upgrade (even at 250,000 installed) is a great deal. It will be even better when ICJ and Piaggio work out the legal particulars to allow removal of the old ADC and lower panel steam gauge instruments. Be a much cleaner install then.

The one upgrade I wish Piaggio would get reasonable with is the additional fuel tank that goes in the closet. The extra 60(?) gallons represent 45 - 50 minutes or another 250NM of range. This would be a world beater of an airplane then! 500,000 is ridiculous which is the price I have been quoted. ....well actually guessed at...by a service center in Florida.

The upgrades I wish Piaggio would OFFER would be the Scimitar Props and the winglets as per the Evo. Any chance of this Daniele?

Mark

For what is related to the Garmin panel upgrades, I agree that the presence of the old Air Data instruments is the biggest limitation for both
the cleanliness of the installation and also from the pilot workload perspective. I hope that someone is willing to invest on it and to find an agreement.

Some time ago I've also heard of some issues with the integration between the Garmin Attitude and Heading computers and the Collins APC-65A Autopilot. For this reason, the existing electro-mechanical gyros had to be retained. (Some Collins SB may be useful to address the issue).
I don't know if these issues have been solved in the last two years, but if not this is the main improvement I would look for, because of the limited serviceability of the electro-mechanical units (Directional and Vertical Gyros, Vertical Accelerometer, Slip/Skid Sensor).

For what is related to the Extended Range fuel tank, while the installation is technically feasible as retrofit, it is VERY invasive and thus the improbable costs exposed.
For an older Avanti, there is also the additional issue of the Fuel Quantity Indicators that are almost impossible to upgrade to the new range, and certification of a different indicator also increase the overall retrofit NRC.

For what is related to the scimitar propellers and the winglets, my personal opinion is that they will not be offered soon as retrofit installation.
The reason is pure marketing: those items are part of the few improvements that really differentiate an Evo from previous A/C's.
How could one justify a 7M$ selling price for a new aircraft that looks identical to 2M$, 20 years old, retrofitted one? (As someone highlighted on BT, the Evo is still equipped with a 15+ yo PL21).

Just my opinion, though.

Ciao,

Daniele