KFC 230 AeroCruze - any information?

[Oldguy]

Just read where BendixKing announced the KFC 230 AeroCruze autopilot. Anyone see or hear anything about it? appears to i/f with the KI 300 so I am wondering about its existence or availability.

[AndyFromCB]

Vaporware at best. I assume they saw Garmin announce their autopilot and then went hard to work with Photoshop.

Why would anyone buy it from them anyway after that entire repair policy fiasco?

S-Tec appears to have done the same with their new S-TEC 3100. The brochure looks like it was created overnight by some tired intern, but unlike BK, it's a real product. Just a rebadged 1500/2100 at a lower price point, which quite frankly is great because the S-TEC 1500 is one of the best autopilots ever created.

[flyboy0681]

May be of interest to a lot of owners IF it's a plug-in replacement and the price is right. Again, if it exists.

[Aerodon]

Plug n play with what?  

I'm at Oshkosh, and you the Garmin booths are crowded with lots of real nice products and autopilots that are likely to be delivered soon.  They have modern servos and integrated displays (G5) at a price which is probably half of what the BK option was at the time your plane left the factory.

On the other hand, the BK booth looks like it cost $500k to build, is empty, has a big deck upstairs for the fat cats to sit and watch the air show.  Year after year they announce products which never reach the market, are overpriced and outdated by the time they do, and are very likely to become orphans in the years to come.  Couple that with a repair policy that is ridiculously expensive.  just compare the flat rate of say a Garmin SL30 with a KX155, or even worse a KX155A

 

aerodon

[PTK]

 

http://www.bendixking.com/V4/KFC-230-AeroCruze

[Jerry 5TJ]

I don't really want just a plug in replacement for the panel mounted controller, I want new and more robust servos, too.  

The 230 display looks good, and the clear depiction of current mode is great -- it helps answer the "what's it doing now?" questions.  

The video says the 230 will replace the system 150 and 250 (sic) controller.  Perhaps he meant 200.  

No matter,  the 230 autopilot shipments are "scheduled for Q3 2018" giving Bendix ample time to announce further delays. 

[carusoam]

Why was there a Garmin transponder in the BK show panel?

Why does the KI300 look nothing like the one that has been coming down the pipe for years?

How real is this?

I expect this to really be fancy vaporware...

Odd...

Best regards,

-a-

[LANCECASPER]

31 minutes ago, carusoam said:

Why was there a Garmin transponder in the BK show panel?

The show panel has a Bendix King KT74 transponder (made by Trig). They did show a picture in the video (at about 01:47) of a panel that had a King KFC150 autopilot with a Garmin GTX330 transponder above it which I thought was interesting.

[Oldguy]

I would have paid much more attention if they had said it would replace the KFC and KAP 150 autopilots. Maybe it is just a slip up in their marketing (insert snarky comment here), but with their lack of meeting any release date in the past several years, I do not hold out a lot of hope they will meet the current release date or have a product I could use to replace my KAP 150..

Best possible solution IMHO would be to partner with someone else like they have on their other recent products i.e. KT-74 (Trig), KMA-30 (PS Engineering), KI-300 (Sandia?).

I will see what the release date is at SNF next April.

[mike_elliott]

26 minutes ago, Oldguy said:

I would have paid much more attention if they had said it would replace the KFC and KAP 150 autopilots. Maybe it is just a slip up in their marketing (insert snarky comment here), but with their lack of meeting any release date in the past several years, I do not hold out a lot of hope they will meet the current release date or have a product I could use to replace my KAP 150..

Best possible solution IMHO would be to partner with someone else like they have on their other recent products i.e. KT-74 (Trig), KMA-30 (PS Engineering), KI-300 (Sandia?).

I will see what the release date is at SNF next April.

Per RC Allen at SNF, they were the ones that were building the KI300. That explains a lot. I expect the Rapture to happen prior to the Ki300 showing up in Peters panel.

[Greg_D]

On 7/27/2017 at 9:31 AM, mike_elliott said:

Per RC Allen at SNF, they were the ones that were building the KI300. That explains a lot. I expect the Rapture to happen prior to the Ki300 showing up in Peters panel.

At OSH, they said that if BK doesn’t ship the KI300, the model they were working on would ship at less than half BK’s announced price.  They said it was basically ready to go, but they pulled the plug on the deal because of the contract that BK wanted them to sign.

[KSMooniac]

BK and STEC both rushed to have *something* to talk about in the A/P field after Garmin announced a few days early, hence the late 2018 availability for both companies.  If I had a BK autopilot (and I'm HAPPY I don't) I would want to replace the old analog computer and the expensive servos with modern drop-in replacements in addition to the KI-256 and the controller... to me it seems they're just putting some shine and an old pile of dung.  For the price of the KI-300 and 1 servo repair you could buy the GFC500.  Add a second servo repair and that might cover installation!  They really needed to make a splash and it was more of a thud.

[Godfather]

23 hours ago, KSMooniac said:

BK and STEC both rushed to have *something* to talk about in the A/P field after Garmin announced a few days early, hence the late 2018 availability for both companies.  If I had a BK autopilot (and I'm HAPPY I don't) I would want to replace the old analog computer and the expensive servos with modern drop-in replacements in addition to the KI-256 and the controller... to me it seems they're just putting some shine and an old pile of dung.  For the price of the KI-300 and 1 servo repair you could buy the GFC500.  Add a second servo repair and that might cover installation!  They really needed to make a splash and it was more of a thud.

I agree with everything you said. However, the BK AP (225) does amazingly well controlling the Mooney.  The AP was good enough to control $3 mil turboprops for over a decade. Having said that I really wish they would upgrade the servo durability so I can keep flying with it for another 3k hours.