My friend with the Columbia 300, recently removed the original (from 2001) Apollo GX-50 IFR GPS with annunciator panel, trays, antenna & instructional books and replaced it with a Garmin 430W.
Everything is in 'as removed' condition, guaranteed to work and is available for the low, low price of......$950.00
I found this one [cgi.ebay.com] on ebay, just like it. It'll be a good one to watch for comparison.
I passed it along to Matt for pricing adjustment, if necessary.
The nice thing about it is, alot of the Columbia 300s came with one, so there are a multitude of pilots flying with one installed and updates are readily available.
No the GX50 will not fit in the Apollo Loran trays, But the GX55 will. I just swaped out my Flybuddy 800, It was a good unit but you can't get updates. To bad Garmin decided to screw the Flybuddy line and not support it. Lorans are a good navigation tool (cheap) if you can get the updates. If I had the panel space I would have keeped mine as a backup. I'm going to keep my and but it back in the plane and keep the GX55 if I ever sale my plane.
No the GX50 will not fit in the Apollo Loran trays, But the GX55 will. I just swaped out my Flybuddy 800, It was a good unit but you can't get updates. To bad Garmin decided to screw the Flybuddy line and not support it. Lorans are a good navigation tool (cheap) if you can get the updates. If I had the panel space I would have keeped mine as a backup. I'm going to keep my and but it back in the plane and keep the GX55 if I ever sale my plane.
Howard (and anyone else who's interested): Database updates for the 800-820 series Flybuddy GPS units are available from Garmin at:
Although, talking to Gary there today, he says NONE of the 820s have been working for about a week due to an internal glitch. Something to do with the GPS engine. They're working on a fix with the manufacturer at the moment and he thinks it'll be at least another week before the problem is solved.
Dan
Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. (Mark Twain)