Thanks for the great post Max and welcome to EuroGA 
Is it in theory possible to remove the G1000 and install say a G500? That would open up the Jetprop conversion to later PA46 airframes.
I know for a fact that some people in the USA got G500/G600 STCs as 3rd party STCs i.e. they installed these on aircraft not included in Garmin’s STC.
I don’t know if @max ever came back but from what I have heard recently there is no real problem with removing the G1000 and installing a G500 or preferably the G600. Perhaps the real issue behind this is that the G1000 PA46s work out too expensive for the conversion.
A G1000 system includes integrated engine instruments which aren’t part of a G500/600. However the new Txi versions of the G500/600 can do engine instrumentation, but only for piston – no turbine option. Then what to do about the autopilot?
It ought to be straightforward to remove the G1000, install the G500, and leave whatever engine instrumentation has been certified for the original Rocket Engineering conversion. There is little point in integrating engine instruments into a glass panel – it just concentrates more stuff behind a single point of failure: the LCD backlight.
Same with the autopilot. The KFC225 (fitted to the pre-G1000 PA46s) seems to work fine in the PA46, and with its ARINC429 steering input you are done. You can fly anything in the GPS database. Was the KFC225 installation limited only to the earlier serial numbers? If so that would be the bigger issue.
I can’t see it making economic sense to rip out G1000 as part of a Jetprop conversion. You will end up paying far more than the price for a G1000 Meridian.
Peter wrote:
Same with the autopilot. The KFC225 (fitted to the pre-G1000 PA46s) seems to work fine in the PA46, and with its ARINC429 steering input you are done.Garmin has a stand-alone autopilot (GFC600) which integrates with the G500.
JasonC wrote:
I can’t see it making economic sense to rip out G1000 as part of a Jetprop conversion. You will end up paying far more than the price for a G1000 Meridian.
Which I think is the motivation for this whole thread: the Jetprop conversion is doomed, at least once the older pre-G1000 airframes that are going to be converted have been converted – because the G1000 equipped aircraft is uneconomical to convert when you could just get a Meridian instead.
Except for the long term difference in operating costs…
The TBM is going cheap enough these days, too.
Hello Peter appologies for ignoring the discussion Darwin at Jet Prop recently told me that an option is to take out then G1000 and put in a new system i e G 500 or the newer TXI system including a new autopilot it is an expensive endeavour but a possibility if someone wants a newer Jet Prop. I just sold our 2002 Mirage and bought a Jet Prop with a 2007 airframe already converted with the PT6 21 engine that has the avidyne displays , the 21 engine is 100K less expensive and if you do not need to squeeze every ounce of high speed performance out of the plane a good solution, it becomes temperature limited at a lower altitude than the 34 or 35 engine but same horse power on takeoff and up to aprox 18,000 feet not much difference, our mission is short runways but not long trips so for us perfect , also the 21 engine is one of the most proven P&W engines out there. In our case the change worked out to almost 250 K less than converting ours and we got a 5 year newer airframe with only 300 hrs on the engine and similar airframe hrs 700TT compared to 820 on our Mirage, I am immediately putting on the N register as it significantly reduces operating costs, if we had left it on the CAMO program there were 15 K in unnecessary life time item replacement costs just renew the ARC. One issue that we saw when looking ( it took almost a year to find a Jet Prop at a reasonable price ) is that there is very little for sale worldwide, at the moment 10 half of which are in Brazil so in fact 5, due to this the sellers are asking silly prices and not much negotiation so we were quite lucky. As my friend Ivo who has a Jet Prop next to me in the hangar says it is like having a small Jet but at piston operating costs, I do not know of anyone who has regretted buying one !
Max wrote:
I do not know of anyone who has regretted buying one
I agree, I have had mine for nearly 10 years and just love ….. the pressurisation … the speed … the rate of climb and the operating costs.
