BK gets STC for AeroCruze 230, KA 310A/P Adapter, & AeroVue Touch

[Oldguy]

https://www.bendixking.com/en/news-listing/2019/july/bendixking-receives-certification-for-three-highly-anticipated-cockpit-upgrades

Is Lucifer ice skating?

[Airways]

C’mon pricelist ! Make me happy !

[hypertech]

Price has been published at least for the KA310 at $1750 for a long time now.  Seems appropriate for Garmin to hurry up and release the same functionality for the G5 to drive the attitude information to the autopilot.  Like it or not, King actually has something now that Garmin doesn't and plenty of people with legacy autopilots and KI-256s they want to get rid of need.

[DXB]

Seem like great options for people with certain legacy autopilots. Does this mean I can't use BK as a punchline anymore.  

[Steve W]

"A slide-in replacement for the KFC 150,"

"Attitude input from AeroFlight (KI 300) primary attitude indicator or another approved source" which doesn't mention the legacy AI, but they do mention the legacy HSI later.

So, I guess slide-in just refers to the tray, not actually the work required. But, really, who wants to keep a King Vacuum AI in their panel.

I will continue to mock them, but this is an interesting development if it actually ships.

 

 

[aviatoreb]

Holy Cannoli!

[Mark89114]

So does this mean we can buy the KI-300 an adapter and actually replace our KI-256?  They have the STC but can they deliver the actual product?  

It has only been 3 years......

 

[Oldguy]

They seem to have more information available than I would have expected. Here is their "Buyer's Guide" for the AeroCruze 230 with list pricing. Shows the J, K, and L (?) models in the AML for the initial STC with M, R, and S models to follow shortly.

https://www.bendixking.com/en/~/media/bendixking/files/2019bk07-aerocruze-230-autopilotpdf-buyers-guide.pdf

 

[Steve W]

33 minutes ago, Oldguy said:

They seem to have more information available than I would have expected. Here is their "Buyer's Guide" for the AeroCruze 230 with list pricing. Shows the J, K, and L (?) models in the AML for the initial STC with M, R, and S models to follow shortly.

https://www.bendixking.com/en/~/media/bendixking/files/2019bk07-aerocruze-230-autopilotpdf-buyers-guide.pdf

 

"I want altitude preselect: The air data will come from the KG 71 and the baro information will come from a KEA 130A."

At this rate I think you're back up to the price of the GFC 500 by the time you get all the bits added together.

 

Edited July 19, 2019 by Steve W

[LANCECASPER]

34 minutes ago, Oldguy said:

They seem to have more information available than I would have expected. Here is their "Buyer's Guide" for the AeroCruze 230 with list pricing. Shows the J, K, and L (?) models in the AML for the initial STC with M, R, and S models to follow shortly.

https://www.bendixking.com/en/~/media/bendixking/files/2019bk07-aerocruze-230-autopilotpdf-buyers-guide.pdf

 

Observations . . . 

So instead of the $10,000 that they’ve been quoting the last few years, by the time you add the required equipment (KMG7010 and KG71) it now brings it to $14,565 plus installation.

Also to have altitude pre-select you’ll have to retain (or add) the KEA-130A altimeter, which would have been nice to ditch.

All in all, I’m glad BK offers one more option.

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, LANCECASPER said:

Observations . . . 

So instead of the $10,000 that they’ve been quoting the last few years, by the time you add the required equipment (KMG7010 and KG71) it now brings it to $14,565 plus installation.

Also to have altitude pre-select you’ll have to retain (or add) the KEA-130A altimeter, which would have been nice to ditch.

All in all, I’m glad BK offers one more option.

For like 10 seconds I was thinking, ok, so this might actually be a reasonable way to go, given a KFC200 already installed, servos in place, no labor to r&r servos, etc....

How can a company claim to sell an autopilot for 10k and then say, but it won't work, no matter what and you need to buy 5k more worth of stuff to make it work and claim that the 10k has anything to do with anything. 

Ok, so 15k.  Then you probably need to buy their KI300 for what...6-7k?  And then you need to buy what for an HSI?

SO I think this may well be MORE expensive by the time you are done, than a GFC500 with a pair of G5's even including the labor of r&r servos - and then you end up with new brushless digital servos.  Of course going GFC500...then you start thinking G3X....

[aviatoreb]

16 hours ago, Mark89114 said:

So does this mean we can buy the KI-300 an adapter and actually replace our KI-256?  They have the STC but can they deliver the actual product?  

It has only been 3 years......

 

And I cannot see any sign that the KI-300 is certified to replace a KI-256 at this moment either still?  So if one wanted to get a "drop in" aerocruze for $10k, plus the required $5k of other stuff, so $15k plus labor, then one would need to consider driving it with their KI256 still?

[LANCECASPER]

4 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

And I cannot see any sign that the KI-300 is certified to replace a KI-256 at this moment either still?  So if one wanted to get a "drop in" aerocruze for $10k, plus the required $5k of other stuff, so $15k plus labor, then one would need to consider driving it with their KI256 still?

The KI-300 was certified a few months back.

[aviatoreb]

1 hour ago, LANCECASPER said:

The KI-300 was certified a few months back.

But not to work with the autopilot I thought.  I thought it was simply certified to work as a stand alone attitude indicator.

So having a KFC200 and a KI300 that won't talk to it (as I understand) the KI300 only serves as a backup attitude - and therefore one would just as well get the G5 (which also won't take to a KFC200) which is a cheaper solution.

[gsxrpilot]

If the AeroCruz 230 will work with my Aspen/EA100, I''ll probably be at the head of the line to buy the upgrade. 

I just feel the GFC500 has too many limitations unless you're all Garmin already.

I'll definitely to talk to the folks here at Oshkosh.

[PT20J]

1 hour ago, gsxrpilot said:

If the AeroCruz 230 will work with my Aspen/EA100, I''ll probably be at the head of the line to buy the upgrade. 

I just feel the GFC500 has too many limitations unless you're all Garmin already.

I'll definitely to talk to the folks here at Oshkosh.

I'll look forward to a pirep from OSH. I too have an Aspen and I'm not interested in getting rid of it to install a GFC500. Garmin makes some neat stuff, but they don't always play well with others and I'm an open systems guy. 

When I talked to BK last December, they were still working on the first cert (Bonanza) and had no idea when that would be done, or when they would get to the Mooneys. I haven't talked to them since, but if they've completed all the planes listed in the marketing brochure (I notice that the wording says that the initial AML STC will  cover, rather than does cover), then they made a lot of progress in seven months.

It does seem that Honeywell is committed to this. I'm happy to wait for them to work out the bugs. When I was in tech, we had a saying, "The pioneers get the arrows."

Skip

[aidanf]

I just looked at the pricelist - to upgrade a 150 you are looking at 16k - its seems a bit disingenuous to say system total 11,590 then add a separate section with 4900 dollars of "additional required equipment" - riddle me this what do you get from this that you do not get with a gfc500 - hint gfc 500 at least you get brand new modern tech servos.

[MIm20c]

Kind of a bummer the 130A is still needed. I wonder if the 7010/71 could be replaced with outputs from a G500 or aspen unit?

[jaylw314]

Here's some old info on the KA310

https://www.bendixking.com/en/~/media/bendixking/files/n61-2019-000-000_aeroflight_electronic_attitude_indicator_autopilot_adapter-bro.pdf

AFAIK, the STC needs to be for connecting to the rest of the KFC autopilot.  If I understand correctly, for the KI 300 to be used as a primary AI for IFR, it only needs to be TSO'd for that function, right?

All this KFC talk is making me hungry for fried chicken suddenly 

Edited July 20, 2019 by jaylw314

[aviatoreb]

35 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

Here's some old info on the KA310

https://www.bendixking.com/en/~/media/bendixking/files/n61-2019-000-000_aeroflight_electronic_attitude_indicator_autopilot_adapter-bro.pdf

AFAIK, the STC needs to be for connecting to the rest of the KFC autopilot.  If I understand correctly, for the KI 300 to be used as a primary AI for IFR, it only needs to be TSO'd for that function, right?

All this KFC talk is making me hungry for fried chicken suddenly 

Is a Bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken STC'ed to eat in a certified airplane?  Classic or Crispy?  Or maybe that's what experimental is for?

[Rwsavory]

14 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

Is a Bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken STC'ed to eat in a certified airplane?  Classic or Crispy?  Or maybe that's what experimental is for?

You need a 337 for a major alteration... to your waistline. 

[aviatoreb]

7 minutes ago, Rwsavory said:

You need a 337 for a major alteration... to your waistline. 

Dang - and here I've been eating without the proper paper work.  I better file a NASA report.

[gsxrpilot]

5 hours ago, aidanf said:

I just looked at the pricelist - to upgrade a 150 you are looking at 16k - its seems a bit disingenuous to say system total 11,590 then add a separate section with 4900 dollars of "additional required equipment" - riddle me this what do you get from this that you do not get with a gfc500 - hint gfc 500 at least you get brand new modern tech servos.

All the autopilots are the same with regards to pricing strategy. The prices you see for the GFC500 doesn't include the required G5, nor the extra servos required. All you have to do is reference @donkaye thread on his GFC500 install and the associated price. So there are always extras required.

And on the question of what this gives you over the GFC500, I would say a few things. One is the ability to shoot an ILS approach without a GPS signal. Secondly the ability to fully integrate with AI/HSI's other than BK OEM stuff. That would include the Aspens as well as Garmin glass.

[aviatoreb]

37 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

All the autopilots are the same with regards to pricing strategy. The prices you see for the GFC500 doesn't include the required G5, nor the extra servos required. All you have to do is reference @donkaye thread on his GFC500 install and the associated price. So there are always extras required.

And on the question of what this gives you over the GFC500, I would say a few things. One is the ability to shoot an ILS approach without a GPS signal. Secondly the ability to fully integrate with AI/HSI's other than BK OEM stuff. That would include the Aspens as well as Garmin glass.

Does it work with aspen?  Does it work with g5?  G5hsi? G5 ai?  I can’t tell what it works with.

certainly in principle there is a 10k discount if one need to remove servos to design for a different kind of servo.

[M016576]

9 hours ago, gsxrpilot said:

If the AeroCruz 230 will work with my Aspen/EA100, I''ll probably be at the head of the line to buy the upgrade. 

I just feel the GFC500 has too many limitations unless you're all Garmin already.

I'll definitely to talk to the folks here at Oshkosh.

Let me know what they say- I have the aspen +ea100 as well, and a KFC150... so this may make sense for me too, when the time comes