Just realized how many old 28V systems are still flying around after reading a fleet survey in Aviation Week
I was reading a fleet survey in Aviation Week that said over 15% of the regional turboprops we still service daily are running on the original 28V DC architecture, which seems wild when you think about all the modern avionics we're trying to integrate.
That 15% number from Aviation Week is actually low for some shops I've talked to. The real headache is trying to put modern glass displays on those old 28V buses without a rock solid voltage regulator. We had to add a separate avionics bus with its own solid state regulator on a King Air last month just to stop the screens from flickering. The original generators just can't handle the clean power new boxes need. It's a whole project just to get stable voltage before you even start the install.