A quick swap

 

Not much will get me up at 6 in the morning.  I think the sunrise is beautiful and all but the concept of waking before it happens is the issue.  I figured out long ago that you can catch sunset and then just run the tape backwards.

While the list is short, radio upgrade is on the list.  The Baron came with a GTN 750 and 650 which are great radios and frankly I was really happy with them.  They did a lot more than my previous GNS 530W and 430W.  But, I had seen an add for a really good deal on an upgrade to the "xi" version of the radios.  Basically you give the shop the old radios and they slide in new radios with 2 faster processors, higher resolution screens and more features. 

I was weak and called them up to schedule the swap.    Technically it is a slide in replacement but it's not that easy.  In the end it took 3 hours in the shop but we are getting ahead of ourselves.  It all started with a very early alarm.  Then a check of the weather to confirm that all the rain from the last few days was finally gone.

I had a companion for the ride.  My daughter dropped into town and amazingly she got up early too and joined me.  We departed and headed South.  Our route was Ocala, Lakeland, Sarasota.  It was a quiet morning and we were cleared to HYZER, which I expected as it is a common point to join V157.  What I did not expect was direct Sarasota a few miles South.  It was a bit hazy but we soon had Sarasota International in sight.

Sarasota is an air carrier airport which makes you think busy and a lot more structure.  Well if you arrive early, you have 1 controller doing it all.  Same person for tower, ground and clearance.  I had studied my charts and after landing on 32, strategically made the turn off where we were going.  A quick taxi and we were shutting down at Dolphin Aviation.  The Avionics shop is located on their ramp so once shut down, I called and they dragged us over to the hangar.

My new radios were waiting on the counter.  Sam and I went off to the FBO to wait, and they jumped on the job.  They first had to upgrade the old radio software.  Then save all the configurations and then swap the radios.  Then you need to check all the configurations and fill out a bunch of paperwork.  The final step turned out to be the hardest.  The dealer calls Garmin and updates my database account with the new radios so my downloads will work.  It took them 36 minutes to get through, then it was a final database download and update and we were done.

So here they are on the trip home.  Can't really see the difference in a picture but they are faster and smoother and I am having fun with the new features.