Last year around this time, Garmin sounded the warning horn that it won’t be able to keep fully supporting the GNS 430—perhaps the most popular avionics unit of all time. Other than the King KX155 navcomm radio, I can’t think of any other unit that’s more familiar. With over 100,000 GNS units sold, it’s easy to understand the hysteria that Garmin’s announcement created. A recent update from Garmin explained that it’s the eight-color, 1990s-vintage display on the GNS 430 that’s extinct, and since it sourced the display from an outside vendor, there’s no new drop-in replacement screen. No matter how you feel about Garmin and its inability to come up with a replacement display (it said a redesign for retrofitting existing GNS units with newer displays isn’t worth the certification costs given the memory-tapped platform), it’s tough to argue that core Garmin products don’t have long production runs.
The G1000 series is one example, hitting OEM panels in the early 2000s and still a standard today as the G1000 NXi. The GTN-series touchscreen navigators replaced the GNS line in 2011 and they’re still in production as the GTN Xi series. So hearing those speculate that the company builds obsolescence into its products so owners are forced to upgrade got me thinking about Garmin’s early panel-mounted avionics that met their demise when, like the GNS 430, Garmin couldn’t source replacement displays for them. Looking at the consumer electronics market, where most video screens are outsourced from the Far East, I’d estimate that 10 years might be the expected support lifespan for a display. For sure, the upgraded feature sets long outlived that old eight-color LCD in the GNS units. Technology hasn’t been stagnant—let’s hit the rewind button.