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Posted

Our Century HSI is on the fritz yet again.  Reading through the logbook shows multiple rebuilds/repairs.  Makes me wonder if a Bendix maybe a better choice for an HSI.  Anyone have experience operating and maintaining both and have opinions on which is better?  With our cramped panels HSI's make a lot of sense, but they are troublesome.

Posted

If your panel is cramped, then I am assuming you may have a GPS map. If that is the case, then the situational awareness provided by the HSI is really obsolete.

You may want to just replace it with a simpler less costly heading indicator

Posted

If your panel is cramped, then I am assuming you may have a GPS map. If that is the case, then the situational awareness provided by the HSI is really obsolete.

You may want to just replace it with a simpler less costly heading indicator

Posted

I have a King 55A and it is a great unit.  Situational awareness is only part of what an HSI offers.  One example of the advantages of an HSI, is flying a "full procedure" ILS, where you fly outbound on the front course, do the procedure turn, then come inbound on the localizer and glideslope.  With an HSI, all you do is set the needle on the inbound course.  Deflection from the course is then correctly indicated whether inbound or outbound, so you do not need to worry about reverse sensing.  You just fly to the course indicator whichever way you are going.  The first time I showed it to a CFI, he said: "How did you do that?" 

 

My personal view is that glass PFD's and MFD's are really nifty, but I have watched as they come and go, and after a decade or so of being around, how the supplier no longer offers service on some units, and how the newer units are built around faster processors that can't be retrofitted to the older units.  My view is that they are still in the "disposable" category, where you need to upgrade something at some point, and can't, and so I am sticking with my HSI until that settles down.  Maybe after ADS-B becomes common and receiver/transceivers stabilize and prices come down.  In the meantime, the steam gauges work really well.

  • Like 2
Posted

Another option might be to install a used Sandel HSI unit.  The 3308 model seems to be available easily on the used market for $1500 or less.  It still needs a remote gyro to drive it, though, and if that is the component that has required repairs regularly then it won't buy you much in terms of improved up-time.  If the indicator keeps failing, then a Sandel might make some sense.

Posted

One option is to use the HSI page on the Aera 560 and just install a regular Century DG if you have the Century autopilot. I found the 560 HSI to perform much better than any mechanical HSI. It also has added features like distance to next wpt. It makes it much easier to shoot approaches. It even provides vertical and horizontal guidance to runways with no approaches by using the OBS function. Love it.

 

José

post-6932-0-61713500-1382389798_thumb.jp

Posted

Bendix-King requires a remote gyro, so you are looking at a considerable expense in switching. I would stick with the Century until you're ready for a major upgrade.  I like our King HSI, but they are going the way of the buggy whip eventually.

Posted

I like the BK system that JL described above...

But it comes as a system that is well integrated from electronic compass down to the AP.

It's old school, but digital like the radios......

90’s technology at it's finest!

The bits and pieces are about 15 years old and have less than 2,000 hours on them. No major maintenance that I'm aware of.

With the drive to use Aspen systems and G500s, a used, full BK system would be ideal!

I love my old digital "steam" gauges., And my lap mounted iPad...

Oscar's single screen Aspen (SVT) is enviable...

Best regards,

-a-

Posted

I have a King 55A and it is a great unit. Situational awareness is only part of what an HSI offers. One example of the advantages of an HSI, is flying a "full procedure" ILS, where you fly outbound on the front course, do the procedure turn, then come inbound on the localizer and glideslope. With an HSI, all you do is set the needle on the inbound course. Deflection from the course is then correctly indicated whether inbound or outbound, so you do not need to worry about reverse sensing. You just fly to the course indicator whichever way you are going. The first time I showed it to a CFI, he said: "How did you do that?"

My personal view is that glass PFD's and MFD's are really nifty, but I have watched as they come and go, and after a decade or so of being around, how the supplier no longer offers service on some units, and how the newer units are built around faster processors that can't be retrofitted to the older units. My view is that they are still in the "disposable" category, where you need to upgrade something at some point, and can't, and so I am sticking with my HSI until that settles down. Maybe after ADS-B becomes common and receiver/transceivers stabilize and prices come down. In the meantime, the steam gauges work really well.

No bashing an HSI. I would keep it if I had one. Only saying that they are expensive to install or repair vs. a moving map and a simple heading bug

Posted

I'm not sure about the differences between the two systems. My BK 55A has worked fine for ~500 hours. I had the AI rebuilt not long after I bought the plane.

I learned to fly instruments in my 1967 Cherokee with a Narco MK12D with LOC/GS and a KX-55 with LOC. Not long after getting my instrument ticket I flew a friends C210 with a BK HSI in instrument conditions. This was my first time flying with an HSI and it was like the first time I had sex....She was AMAZING! I will never own an airplane without an HSI again!

Even you Aspen equipped guys have an HSI - that is legally what you're supposed to fly by - not a GPS screen (first off it's not in your scan...).

Posted
I'm not sure about the differences between the two systems. My BK 55A has worked fine for ~500 hours. I had the AI rebuilt not long after I bought the plane. I learned to fly instruments in my 1967 Cherokee with a Narco MK12D with LOC/GS and a KX-55 with LOC. Not long after getting my instrument ticket I flew a friends C210 with a BK HSI in instrument conditions. This was my first time flying with an HSI and it was like the first time I had sex....She was AMAZING! I will never own an airplane without an HSI again! Even you Aspen equipped guys have an HSI - that is legally what you're supposed to fly by - not a GPS screen (first off it's not in your scan...).
You can have the best of both worlds with an Aspen... An HSI with a moving map under it! e9yvy7ab.jpg
  • Like 1
Posted

Just like others have said.  If you're considering replacing, then go with an Aspen.  I can't think of a good reason to "buy" an expensive mechanical HSI when the Aspen has gobs of more useful features for the same dollar.

  • Like 1
Posted

PS  I am definitely not anti-technology.  I have an iPad retina and make full use of it in the cockpit.  Plus a moving map, and other nifty stuff on the panel.  What bothers me a little, is putting stuff on the panel, which requires certified installation and certified unit pricing - and that is alot of money even with an Aspen, and then finding out 8 or 10 years later that there is no way to upgrade it to whatever the new and nifty stuff of the future is at that time, it just needs to be replaced.  So I prefer steam gauges on the panel, plus the relatively inexpensive portables that don't cost $15,000 installed.

 

The stuff you can put on an iPad now, is absolutely astounding.  Not just georeferenced charts and approach plates, but AHRS, CDI's, etc.  They are not certified to be sure, but they work, and I do not feel an urgent need to spend an extra $10,000 to get the certified version if it is going to be obsolete at some point.  Steam is never obsolete.

Posted

I don't think anyone is saying you are anti-technology. In fact, I shared many of your same sentiments and flew behind this panel for 21 years: a7ypequt.jpg I always had a portable GPS on the yoke and since I did most of my flying in the Northeast, I actually got "cleared direct" so many times that I felt like I was flying /G. It wasn't until my KX-170B slide-in replacement, the honorable TKM MX-170B, decided to die twice in 6 months that I decided it was time to upgrade. My intent was to only replace the Nav/Com with a WAAS GPS.

 

Aside from reading about the advancements in avionics, I never really had a chance to fly behind them. When I got that chance, my kid's inheritance soon became folklore. As did most of the steam gauges in my plane.

 

I did have a little bit of time with a mechanical HSI after I did my complex checkout in a Mooney that I rented before I bought. I'm just thankful that I didn't drop the money on the mechanical HSI I was looking at to replace my dead DG back in the beginning of the century. The advancements in the glass technology does so much more.

 

As for regrets? None from me. My kids on the other hand... Plenty. :)

Posted

Oh heck, I am not sensitive.  If someone else has another view, go for it. 

 

I have plenty of tech on my panel, just not glass PFD:

 

http://mooneyspace.com/uploads/gallery/album_13214/gallery_325_387_28818.jpg

 

 

http://mooneyspace.com/uploads/gallery/album_13214/gallery_325_387_69472.jpg

 

If the manufacturers were a little more generous with their upgrade trade in program, so it would not cost so much to upgrade their older unit to their current unit, I might consider it.  Garmin had a pretty nice program on old GPS's and moving maps when I did my panel.  But they don't seem to feel the need to support an upgrade path, and I am not anxious to pony up now for a certified unit, and pony up later for another certified unit. 

 

I am looking at new aircraft right now, glass is not on my list.  As I understand it, in some of the early glass panel Mooneys the G1000 that was nonWAAS cannot be made WAAS at all, or if it can, it is five digits. 

 

Just not impressed with the upgrade track record. 

 

Maybe they will read this and change, who knows.

  • Like 1
  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Thanks everyone.  Turned out to be an electrical wiring issue, not an instrument issue.  If you get indication errors (not gyro errors) in your mechanical HSI, I highly recommend working with an A&P to test the continuity in the wiring between the Nav radio and the HSI before going through the trouble of removing and shipping off the HSI.  Pinning diagrams available on the web can tell you which pin controls which indication.  Different pins control the left/right deviation, up/down deviation, and signal failure flags.  Turned out on ours that a mid-wiring connection became loose so the signal was lost, making the flag go up.  Had we shipped it off they would not have gotten the error but still would have charged us diagnostic time.

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