I was thinking about buying a used King KLN88 loran for my Warrior. I just read an artical on the Eastern Avionics website talking about how good of a deal Loran is and how it will still be around for a long time.Is this true or are they just trying to get rid of some old trade ins. I eventually would like to install a Garmin IFR cert. GPS but cannot afford that right now and I would rather spend 1/3 the money on a Garmin 496 or 396 and have live weather. I figure if I install this Loran for under $500.00 I would be IFR capable to fly direct and would have a backup if the GPS system went down. I was wondering if this unit is still supported by King and if I can get updates.
Great unit, last of the ifr certifiable units. However the data base upgrade costs $250. Also the antenna has to be BK, not manufactured any more and may be hard to get. I like having a back up that is based upon different technology, especially with the possible problems GPS may experience with solar storms.
John
Kerry, why not contact Sarasota Avionics and see what they suggest. They will undoubtably have some used, but refurbished, iFR GPS's hanging around (probably King). Eastern Avionics is pretty good people, but Sarasota is a notch beyond.
I wouldn't spend money on a Loran unit just now. The Coast Guard wants to dump the system. They put out a request for comments on that concept during the winter. Quite a few people wrote in saying, in effect, "You can't do that, we need a backup system for GPS". It's unknown at this time how much weight USCGS will give to those comments. I'd wait until the Coast Guard announces its plan and DHS agrees to fund it before spending real money.
LORAN is funded until 2011 and AOPA reports the funding will again be approved WAY past 2011.
The Feds also have up their sleve, the option to (in the time of a natioal emergency) curtail GPS, thus rendering your system useless for brief times. In addition, beyond the TGPSO (Temproary GPS Outage) there are occasions when GPS simply goes blank.
Having a King KLN-88 (the Mother of all LORANS) in your panel is a great way to keep a backup system on board, especially on dark and stormy nights. So many of us have become complacent and simply rely on GPS, not many pilots these days can simply whip out the old sectional and fly by "pilotage."
Google "AOPA LORAN" and get up to speed on the current push to KEEP LORAN and dump VOR technology.
If you have LORAN keep it...If you find a good deal on one whose database can be updated get it. GPS is good BUT it does get messed with around some parts of the coutry (western US from my experience) hence the GPS Outage NOTAMS. My LORAN is within its accuracy tolerance of GPS all the ime.
If you are still thinking about a LORAN, I have a KLN-90A IFR (enroute) GPS that you can have for the same price range. I think you will like it a lot more than the LORAN! Feel free to email me @ safeguard15@sbcglobal.net if you are interested.
