I don't think I'd change careers because of this. I would certainly want to get the necessary training to install and maintain these setups. Unlike consumer electronics, these packages cost enough that people are willing to pay to have them repaired. A lot of pilots are very excited about these EFIS units. Just yesterday, I received the January issue of Flying magazine. The cover story is the Garmin G1000. It's going to be an option for the Cessna 182 starting next year. When that was announced, Cessna received orders for about 300 planes IN A SINGLE HOUR! The G1000 is going to be available as standard equipment or as an upgrade in a couple planes from Diamond and in the Cessna Mustang light jet. Flying also has a story about the Cirrus SR-22, which has a glass cockpit option from another manufacturer.

Greater integration of information, higher reliability, much improved situational awareness, and lighter weight. That's a damned fine combination. This is the future of general aviation avionics. Not only will most new GA planes offer glass cockpits within a few years, there will be a lively market to upgrade older planes, at least those above a certain price point. No word yet on the price of a two-panel G1000 installation. I guess it'll be somewhere around $40,000-50,000 US. However, as the homebuilt community has shown, there are opportunities for less expensive systems to hit the market once the demand for such systems is demonstrated by systems like the G1000. One problem is the high cost of certification (many million dollars) over a projected production run of perhaps a few thousand units. There are somewhere around 100,000 to 200,000 light planes in the US alone. If they can develop a unit closer to the $10K price point, they could sell tons of them. It wouldn't make sense to put a G1000 installation into my 1975 Cessna 172, but I'd try real hard to get a $10K unit in the plane if one were available.