Garmin/Apollo MX20 MFD

I would say somewhere between 500 and 1000 Euro excluding VAT for installation provided that the unit is complete and with external GPS source. If it has the the internal GPS option a bit more. Also add 290 Euro for EASA minor change fee’s. Be sure to have the FAA form 8130 or an EASA form one with the unit.

I will not give you a price indication, as this is something you have to find out with the seller. I can image it can get you can have a nice MFD with a large screen which is hard to beat.

Why not get a quote for an installation?

There are multiple variants – it looks like you are looking at some cheap one, so do check?

It’s a nice product. If you can get one put in for a few k, that’s great value. By comparison, a modern GPS with that size screen will be 20k by the time it’s in there.

People criticise MFDs the “FMS+MFD” combination is much under-rated and I would put in an EX600 if it wasn’t for some unrelated issues.

There are cheap used MFDs on the US market because people are throwing in GTN750s and (gradually) IFD540s.

Altough it is obsolete, I think it can offer good display value for money if you can have it complete for a low price.
Installation depends on the other equipment. Interfacing to which other equipment. MX-20 with build in GPS or as display only?

They are integrated avionics systems that have MFDs. That was my point. Standalone retrofittable MFDs are a tiny and now almost dead market.

Are the G3000/5000 MFDs?

In terms of “fashionable avionics”, MFDs are indeed obsolete, and little or no new development is happening (though this is IMHO partly because Garmin are trying to sell the GTN750, and Avidyne have run out of money and engineering resources to enhance their many nice MFD products)

There is a fair bit of development happening but not in retrofit avionics. G3000 and 5000 are wonderful. I don’t think retrofit avionics are a particularly great business. The only one which works is Nav/Com/GPS units are they are fairly simple to fit.

In terms of “fashionable avionics”, MFDs are indeed obsolete, and little or no new development is happening (though this is IMHO partly because Garmin are trying to sell the GTN750, and Avidyne have run out of money and engineering resources to enhance their many nice MFD products) but if

• you pick one up very cheaply, and
• it was so cheap that the installation cost does not make it unviable, and
• it does what you need, and
• you are satisfied that the database support will continue (not so important on MFDs – I have not updated my KMD550 since 2010), and
• your GPS screen is too small to be usable as a moving map (GNS430, GTN650, KLN94, etc)

then the MX20 or similar will give you a massive improvement in your interfacing to the aircraft / the general cockpit workflow, because your little GPS will become a text-only “FMS box” and the MFD will be the bit you actually look at during the flight. That is after all how all commercial jets have been for decades and for a very good reason.

If you have unlimited money then of course you throw in 2 x GTN750 (or GTN650 as the “keypad” and a GTN750 to actually look at), or (once they get most of the bugs out) 2 x IFD540, but not everybody is able to do that.