ADS-B!

I've always been on the fence about installing ADS-B.  I get no real benefit since I have an active traffic radar system in my plane through the GTS-800 and XM weather through the GDL-69A.  Seemed silly to add another box to the plane and also I found the whole dual band, 978/1090ES thing very confusing...  Yet, I'm paying $60 a month for XM, so it would be nice to kill that off since FIS-B weather is free.  Also the ADS-B traffic symbology is pretty cool, now I can not only see traffic targets but also see their N-number and trend vector.   Of course, ADS-B is also going to be a requirement in 2020 so when Garmin announced the GTX-345 I went ahead and ordered one.  I also ordered a FlightStream 210 so that I can upload flight plans from my iPad to the panel.  Yesterday I picked up the plane from AirTronics after the install.  All working great!

Not a great photo but there is the GTX-345 at the bottom.  Notice it has my N-Number.  Also the traffic on the GTN's is depicted as an triangle arrow shape if it's an ADS-B target, and a square block if it's a radar target.  Cool.

I also had the shop wire up the GTN interface to control the transponder.  I could have done that before with my old GTX-330 but it was never hooked up for some reason.

I also had the shop wire up my flight director from my AutoPilot.  It's only recently that Garmin allowed the FD interface from the C-IV autopilot, so this is a pretty cool addition for me.  Hand fly an instrument approach is now as simple as following the command bars.  Way cool.