Bendix/King news on AvWeb about KI-300

[LANCECASPER]

If you have a Bendix-King KI-300 or Sandia SAI-340A Electronic AI, you're grounded for IFR and night VFR because they're failing at an FAA-alarming rate, often without failure indications (red X's).  See the new Emergency AD 2020-18-51.

https://pic.aopa.org/discuss/viewtopic/167/1933

[Marauder]

Just now, LANCECASPER said:

If you have a Bendix-King KI-300 or Sandia SAI-340A Electronic AI, you're grounded for IFR and night VFR because they're failing at an FAA-alarming rate, often without failure indications (red X's).  See the new Emergency AD 2020-18-51.

https://pic.aopa.org/discuss/viewtopic/167/1933

Damn Swiss watches.

[mooneyflyfast]

11 minutes ago, Marauder said:

Damn Swiss watches.

My swiss watch (KI256) is working great and is very dependable

[FoxMike]

Surprised that did not happen a lot sooner.  Really surprised no one got killed.  Will be really, really surprised if Sandia will spend the money to find a fix.

[PTK]

3 hours ago, mooneyflyfast said:

My swiss watch (KI256) is working great and is very dependable

My KI256 is running great also. Best for these is to be flown and kept exercised. If they sit too long their bearings tend to “set” and the instrument goes prematurely. This is how it was described to me by Bob Bramble. And “prematurely” is relative. He sees these last upwards of 2k hours! I changed the vacuum pump a couple hundred hours ago. Strictly a preventative measure and very cheap insurance.  

[MB65E]

RE:AD

yup- me too. Installed a unit earlier this year. One flight it rolled over pretty bad. Sent it to Sandia for repair of the board. Received an 8130 back. Installed the repaired unit. It’s still kinda vague in roll. Personally Elected not to fly IFR with it, then the AD yesterday confirmed my suspicion.

-Matt

[squeaky.stow]

The bad news for me is that I just bought a used Sandia 340A to replace my old RC Allen standby A/I.

The good news is I haven’t installed it yet, so I am only out the purchase price.