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5 sets available , Factory new , I think I can do 4000 a set , These will eliminate your KI256 legally , Alan 856 419 5209

just saw an ad in AOPA mag that both units are now available, hard to believe, question is does the gyro KG102 package remain or can it be removed, vacuum system, would like to dump KI 265 -255 flight director and go glass in my ovation, how much work is required to install.

Hi, My KI256 seems to be getting slow and the KFC200 will do sudden uncommanded banks. I'm interested in maybe replacing the 256 with the KI300 but have yet to find anyone, anywhere that has one or even seen one, let alone the KA310 AP adapter. I worry that BK will drop this AI before it ever ships. Seems like there is a big market of KFC/KAP + KI256 users who would would like to modernize w/o a 5-figure installed cost. The only real installs I've read about are Aspens. Anyone know anything about the KI300? Is it real? Thanks, John W 1981 M20J

Looking at how BK handled the AeroFlight KI 300 emergency AD from August 2020 it is way to optimistic to expect any reasonable support for AeroCruze/TruTrak. KI300 AD is still not resolved after 3 years, so the folks who have it are still flying with INOP sticker. I think there is market for permanent "INOP" stickers for BendixKing avionics!

Wow - that is fantastic. And that does not include trade in? So that shop - what would it cost for a 3 servo GFC500 and two G5 - so that would be a comparison apples to apples vs dropping in an aerocruze 230 plus KI300 and keeping the old mechanical 525 HSI and old servos. I bet its almost the same. As I said I am just doing 2 GI275's ...for now.

I wouldn't touch a new king product with a ten foot pole. King of the 1980s was king of avionics and they made best in class. Now they are just a goofy company that makes faulty equipment and it takes a decade to transition from vapore ware to an obsolete product of someone else's product with their sticker on it. E.g. the KI300 debacle that eventually those few who installed it and to remove it by AD. And the King predatory behavior of trying to force out the third party maintenance companies like autopilot central. Which they back tracked on. My KFC200 is a good and steady and reliable unit. I will continue with it for now because it is installed and I like it. But I would not buy something new from them. Oh - and their drop in replacement - all reports are that it is in fact not a drop in replacement, and a KFC230 plus a KI300 - with your old servos - would cost you pretty close to what a pair of G5's plus a GFC500 with new brushless digital servos, and a real company backing it up. Somewhere on here someone posted the actual cost of installing a aerocruze 230 and it was running ~15k installed not including a KI300 or whatever you are using to drive attitude. ...seems I have a strong opinion. I wish that king had been a real company and certified a real drop in replacement,. meaning digital autopilot and digital servos to replace current equipments and it really was drop in. But besides that, they have just become a goofy and bizarre company I would not invest in.

I think Bendix King has also been paying people to replace the KI300 indicators with GI275, haven't they?

I will second that BK handled the replacement and install of a gi275, for me too, very well. It sucks the ki300 didn’t workout, but they made it right for me. Hopefully their products get sorted, their customer service has been world class though.

Whatever good will BK had for the fact that many/most of us have excellent best of the tech as of ~circa 1980 BK products in our airplanes, they have dumped the confidence and product loyalty we might have carried with a recent practice of bad products, eg the KI300, bad marketing, eg ridiculously long vaporware periods, but for me, most of all, bad faith of absurd product support that include predatory parts pricing (e.g. the 2500 trim switch and other, or e.g. the attempted monopoly move of putting all the 3rd market supporters like autopilots central out of business so they could "provide" their own very inferior repairs at crazy spriraling prices). That this aerocruze 230 turns out to be not the drop in that they suggested, not even close, and that it would be as expensive as the other most expensive alternative (gfc500) or more expensive than alternatives (e.g. dynon), just confirms my already low opinion of the company. Just based on that expense issue I see no viable reason for someone in my position to consider it. Perhaps someone with a BK autopilot and perhaps an aspen it makes some sense?

Gotcha. That helps. Between the mediocre support from King, the exorbitant pricing, the lack of thinking process in cost reduction, the history with the KI300 as another poster stated, the historically stuffy attitude towards GA, and inferior market delivery, generally substandard features, I don’t see them as a serious player anymore. How old is the KX155/165 series? The KAP/KFC was built what, nearly 40 years ago? You would think innovation even in aviation has a faster pace. In my kitchen table I have an Aera 510, a 560, and a Zumo. Same exact case, form factor, battery, display and all- just slightly different presentation and wholly different pricing models. Garmin loooooves the small feature hardware upgrade. Their quality has improved lots but their lackluster support of things like the apollo/upsat purchase left me sour along with their monopolistic practices. Between their lobbying for and winning an ADSB political mandate which I consider to be wholly unnecessary, to how they price their hardware, I am definitely not a Garmin fanboy and cheer for Dynon, Aspen, Navworks, Uavionix, avidyne and even L3 with their NGT every chance I get. Bendix king making an acquisition of Trutrak was good for the trutrak owners and investors crowd, but in my opinion a half hearted, impotent, insincere and lackluster attempt at remaining in General Aviation if this is all they’ve got. Av8or? The KMD series? How much innovation has come out since the 89b, KLN94 etc? Even the Aerocruze was an acquisition by taking someone out of the nascent new autopilot market and making them part of corporate Bendix. If it wasn’t for OEM deals they would not exist today, I believe. Unimpressive. Aeropanel! Aeropower! Aerovue! Seriously, if all I want is rebranded product, I’ll just go to PS engineering directly and call it a day. OEM deals generally suck. Their former employees at Garmin continue to eat their lunch- to have a former employee build a $4Bn empire just shows the size of the market and opportunities missed.

As much as I hate to write it, with a Garmin product you're buying from a company that has a decent track record of getting working products to market. I despise monopolistic practices as much as the next guy and will chose the competition if a product is comparable (hi, Dynon) but King haven't exactly been the definition of fair market practices or reasonable pricing, not to mention the KI300 fiasco...

The latest Aviation Consumer says that there is an AD out making these two EFIS units VFR only. Both were sold as being substitutes for the King attitude/flight director instruments (i.e. KI-256) that drive the KAP/KFC autopilots. The are VFR only even as a backup. I remember reading posts about Aspen units that ran into a similar problem. The does not leave much, the Garmin units I guess, hope they don’t get hit also because I am about to install one as an AI driving the KFC200. I did a search on KI300 and did not see a prior post. Hope this is not repetitive.

Ki300 is being replaced with a gi275, because of the erroneous readings.

I was under the impression that the Sandia 340 and L3 esi500 are approved to be backups for the aspen panels. @J0nathan225 I would inquire about your ki300, being the same as the Sandia, to be used as the sole backup for AI, ASI, and altimeter. The KI300/Sandia I believe have the ASI and altimeter marked primary in contrast to the G5 that clearly describes them as secondary.

I doubt if the Aspen software update will fix this fine swiss watch KI256 however, Peter. Thankfully, I had an Aspen to keep the shiny side up in IMC that day. Are you still flying and trusting your life to the technology of the '30's, with your KI256/Ki258 or did you finally get that KI300 you swore by 4 years ago installed?

I agree completely about an STEC20 for 8k vs a GFC500 for 7k - although for both the real cost is how much is the fly away cost. Still, with the current and coming offerings, an STEC20 is past. I also cringed when BK bought TT. :-(. Yeah that KI300 joke has been - sad. I mean what - when they finally get it certified will it be so old tech that it will come with a free Atari Pong game built in? Or will they charge $250 to unlock that feature? But more so - I am not forgetting the fiasco of 2 years ago when BK had temporarily moved to block all 3rd party maintenance companies - like autopilot central etc, that not only repair/overhaul/fix our classic BK parts but usually do so with much better and more modern components so they are definitely better than they were when new. They tried to corner the repair market and put their backup shops bankrupt. That only lasted 2 months or so til backlash killed it. That killed BK for me taking them seriously so I would otherwise be curious/interested in the aerocruze 230 as a plausible option for its ease of drop in replacement. But I am instead suspicious of how much it will cost me in the long run of continuing to run BK servos. Also - it needs the KI300 - vaporware - I know we can buy KI300 today as a stand alone but it still doesn't interact with autopilots as I understand it. I honestly don't understand why BK couldn't make a drop in replacement for the kI256 at an excellent price. And digital brushless servos as drop in replacement for the old servos. Saving all the shop time of a complete autopilot R&R was a fantastic opportunity for them for their kajillion legacy autopilot owners to sell tons of modern product. Instead they not only abandon us, they taunt us and egg us on with the next quarter joke and relabeled 3rd party products that look nice on old avweb videos but they don't really exist.

Pretty sure the STC says the G5 can be used as either the attitude indicator OR the turn coordinator replacement but NOT both. Other options for replacing the TC: Dynon D10A , uAvionics AV30 (when certified), mechanical AI, RC Allen RC-2610, Sandia 340 Quattro, ESI-500, GI275, KI300, and probably more.

made the choice on avionics up grade for the 99 ovation, we had planed to up grade the Garmin 480,mx 200 display( it hurts when Garmin say NO LONGER SUPPORTED,converting to a Garmin 750 display, and then decide to replace hsi/dg with Garmin 275 units and remove vacuum DUAL system. we had been on the waiting list for 4 months and air craft when in last week, up grade will take about 30 days. lots of choices out there, KI 300 was view as bad choice due to unit problems and they said they had had customers request removal of the KI300 after install due to unit problems.275 install cost about 16mu and added 3 weeks to the job. this is the 4 th. avionics upgrade in ten years, last one was a jp900, new panel, ADF and storm scope removal. only King units left are auto pilot,and 155 radio. other upgrades were new interior, 310 HP upgrade ( very happy about this one)), top prop conversion, and the dreaded cylinder replacement, it all started with a bad Moritz display, that after 4 repair attempts it got junked and replaced with a JPI 900. avionics shop had at least 10 planes under avionics work. now starts the learning curve on how use the new equipment and will it all work as planed. will send picture when done

Correct. Initially, I checked with Garmin if I can have two G5s replacing the KI 256 and the KI525a. That didn't work because the G5 replacing the KI-256 just won't talk to the KFC 200 with or without the GAD29b, hence no flight director... So I needed the KI 300 as a KI256 replacement, but I could put a G5 with a GAD 29b underneath the KI300 replacing the KI525a I guess... I'm still hoping my 525a will hold up until there's a PFD around that does the trick replacing the whole 6-pack with the KI-300 as a backup for 5 out of the 6 functions. I have a second VOR-LOC-GSI backing up the HSI, so that would be acceptable to me. Yet the folks at Dynon are holding an STC that excludes interfacing with an autopilot. So that won't do. Nor will the Aerovue Touch. It's "Keep flying and hope for the best...."

An easy replacement would be a drop in replacement. Remove the kaI256 and then slide in whatever the new thing is. Rewiring a panel...is expensive. We have seen on here that GI275 costs maybe 40 hours of reworking. That and its hardware cost makes it competitive with an ASPEN cost wise and time wise, so taking time and cost as a measure of easy I would say that there does not yet exist an easy replacement for the Kai256 - there do exist replacements, but none easy. We have GI256, KI300, G3x, G500, etc all at various levels of not easy and expensive. None easy and none cost no brainers. Many reasonable choices if we take the cost of anything aviation to be reasonable.

Juergen, I'd think hard about whether you want to get rid of your vac system. I had a KI300 and 310 fitted in December and have had to replace the Ki300 twice due first to an overheating issue and then (with a replacement unit) where the KI300 failed a couple of times after about 30 mins in cruise (see attached photo - the vac A/H tells the truth). I agree that the system works well - when it works - but I am very glad that I'd kept my vac A/H as a backup. BK have been good about replacing the units but I think that there has to be significant doubt about their reliability. regards John

My vac ah sits right beside the ki300 so I’m not relying on it. I’d not heard about it being prone to upset but will check it in march. In the mountains in summer here, turbulence is not hard to find. The glitches are disappointing but I didn’t want to overhaul my ki258 and needed something to drive my kap150. If all else fails, I’ll fit a garmin 500txi but I’d prefer to avoid them if i can. We often hear that reliability is the great advantage of these solid state instruments but I haven’t seen any real evidence for that. I’m on my fourth IFD540 box in five years and I have friends who have had multiple failures on garmin stuff. then again, maybe I’ll just overhaul the ki258!!!

I've now done 15 hours flying (and 9 approaches incl ILS, RNAV, overlay NDB, hold) with the KI300 (and KI310) since having it fitted in December . The main issue with it has been overheating. I've now replicated the problem by leaving the plane in the sun without a cover - it initialised fine at temperatures to 38degC but did not at 40degC. It would not leave the "heating mode" and start the "alignment" phase - I ran it for more than 10 minutes before shutting down. These are high temperatures but not extreme for Australia and the USA. BendixKing say that they will be send a replacement in the hope that this is just a bad unit but I'll be interested in others experiences with it in high temperatures. My take on it so far: 1. It does everything that the KI258 did in driving my KAP150 autopilot but with a bit more precision. 2. The speed and altitude tapes are useful but they are not really a backup since they run off the same pitot static system. The built in VSI has been surprisingly good as it is effectively an instantaneous reading and does not have the lag of the main instrument. 3. I chose to leave my vacuum system in and just replaced the worn out KI258 with a cheap vacuum A/H in a secondary location on the panel. If your vac system works then I can't see why you'd want to remove it. I've never had a vac pump failure perhaps because I replace them at the same time I have my mags overhauled. They are a relatively cheap part. This gives me triple redundancy for attitude as I have the backup vac pump on the vac A/H and the battery on the Ki300. 4. The KI310 is a surprising large (5.8 x 5.25 x 1 inches) box for what it does. It is very tight behind my panel so, to find a place for it, we had to remove the DME. I'm now away for five weeks but will do some further testing on my return after the replacement KI300 has been fitted. By that time, I'll have to do a long trip to test it in 40degC temperatures but will do so.

I’d not be overly concerned as the reaction when the KI300 went offline was similar to what I’d experienced in the past when the KI258 needed an overhaul. But it is disappointing as I’d hoped that the digital KI300 would just disengage the autopilot quickly enough to maintain straight and level. i’ll be in touch with BK shortly to see whether they can suggest what caused the problem.

For the price I'd rather have seen them upgrade the G5 to do all these things. But I may still find myself getting one or two of these 275's in the next year or two as my HSI and gyro are showing signs that they are near end of life. I would have purchased a KI300 a year and a half ago had it been available when my vacuum pump died. Instead I put in a new pump.