Don't fly. Currently, I'm in Auburn, Maine, working on a restoration of a Lockheed Super Constellation. It's a 1649A that used to belong to TWA. Lufthansa is doing the project. I'm a team leader. We have the horizontal and vertical tail structures.
The 1649 is the last model, the big boy. It has a 150 foot wingspan. All previous models were 120. I came up here because I could not pass up the money, and the Repair Station I had worked at for 12 years was not growing the way I had imagined. Stayed there about 3 years longer than I should have. around 20 years of corporate jets prior to that, mostly Citations, but we worked Lear, King air and more recently Embraer Phenom 100 and 300 jets. I loved the work, but management kept trying to expand into different makes without the training and tooling to support the work force, then got all irritated when we could not deliver on time or on budget. Go figure. I thought we were going to focus on the core business and do it well, which we did for a while, but it kept creeping into aircraft that are much harder to support and more labor intensive. Hopefully when I get out of here, something solid will be available in the Dallas market.
As far as older small planes, I've worked them too. You are probably aware that NARCO is an acronym for Not A Real Company!
I've worked Collins, Garmin, Honeywell, and Universal integrated systems, and Garmin just has it nailed. Great compatability, solid, reliable products, and functions galore. I can't profess to know even half of what a G1000 will do across the board, but synthetic vision technology that works ALL the time is an incredible tool for owner operators in single pilot aircraft. I guess the more you use it, the better you get with it. Those old Arrows are solid little airplanes.
