AEROCRUZE PAYMENT WANTED BY A/C SPRUCE TO SEND TO BK BEFORE SHIPPMENT

[cliffy]

Just got word from A/C that they need payment for the Aerocruze A/P now so they can send it to BK for shipment

They say its a "special order:' and payment before shipping is needed.

Anyone else in this boat ?  I don't know if I want 6K hanging out there hoping that the stuff will ship "sometime in the future"

[McMooney]

put it on amex, if they don't ship, dispute 

[alextstone]

I just pulled an almost new Aerocruz 100 from my wifes Cherokee 180 in favor of a GFC500 (I made the mistake of bragging about how much l liked mine in my Bravo and she "politic-ed" for her own).  I am interested in selling it.  I don't know if BK will reprogram it for your aircraft though.  I'll sell it for 1/2 what you are paying for a new one.  Please contact me at 601-470-7092 if you want to consider.  

[ZuluZulu]

1 hour ago, alextstone said:

I just pulled an almost new Aerocruz 100 from my wifes Cherokee 180 in favor of a GFC500 (I made the mistake of bragging about how much l liked mine in my Bravo and she "politic-ed" for her own).  I am interested in selling it.  I don't know if BK will reprogram it for your aircraft though.  I'll sell it for 1/2 what you are paying for a new one.  Please contact me at 601-470-7092 if you want to consider.  

What an endorsement for the Aerocruze! 

[alextstone]

3 minutes ago, ZuluZulu said:

What an endorsement for the Aerocruze! 

I'm not saying it's a bad autopilot but the Garmin is more capable albeit at a higher cost.  Plus we are moving toward avionics parity in our two planes so that we both are more familiar with each.  

[cliffy]

STC has to be able to transfer  and the servo mounts wouldn't work but it is a nice offer.  THX

[JoeM]

AS is ordering through Duncan Avionics, which holds the STC and is ordering from BK. Duncan has set the requirement that the AP must be prepaid to protect themselves from orders being cancelled after they have ordered from BK. I want the AP but decided not to prepay until some have been delivered. Duncan says they have ordered the first batch, and are waiting on BK to deliver them. Aren't we all???

[EricJ]

It does seem a little sketchy that a product that will supposedly be for open general sale for the foreseeable future is requiring prepayments with no commitment for delivery other than a 90-120 day uncommitted estimate.    This process has been a mess, but fingers crossed it'll actually be done within the foreseeable future.

I ordered one with AS back when they first put it online.   When the news about Duncan came out I sent some inquiries to AS for clarification and didn't really get any informative responses and some of my questions went unanswered.   With no responses from AS I ordered one from Duncan.    When Duncan called to ask for pre-payment I said I was reluctant to pre-pay that far out with no commitment on a delivery date, especially given the history.   The guy on the phone said they'd check on how they'd handle that and get back to me, which they haven't.     AS then emailed and asked me whether I wanted a 12v or 24V, but hasn't asked for payment.   When I responded to their question I asked about expectations for payment and delivery and never heard back.

So it's a mess, but that seems to come with the territory.   I'm not impressed about asking for pre-payment on something so far from delivery with no commitment, especially given the history of this.

I'll buy one from somebody, but it isn't at all clear who.   I wish the process was a bit more transparent and communication better. 

 

[MikeOH]

WOW!  After reading this thread my cynical opinion is they STILL do NOT have product available to sell

It sounds all the world like they don't have enough capital to actually build them, so they are getting full money up-front, with no delivery commitment, in hopes of using the money to buy parts and manufacture!  What could possibly go wrong??

Glad my STEC-30 with altitude hold soldiers on.... hope I didn't just jinx myself

[carusoam]

How can anyone commit to pre-pay without a delivery date… and an option for a cancellation if the date gets exceeded…?

I like BK equipment… it came with the plane…

Since I have had my plane… BK has attempted new products several times… delivered uncontrollably late, or not at all… or missed expectations by soooo much nobody else bought it…

Honeywell is a big corporation, they can easily afford running the business as if it were a real business…

Get the deliveries going BK!

The pre-payments are so small in corporate dollars… this is embarrassing to ask for…

Remember the time STec demanded purchase orders from people to commit to buying the new AP…  peopel were unable to write POs… and there are very few of those nice STecs around here….

 

Back in the day… Avidyne took this route… and offered nice discounts for pre-paying… then surprised many by delivering on what they promised… there are a lot of Avidyne radios mounted in Mooneys… 

 

It looks very much like Honeywell is hanging out the BK division to fend for themselves….

Aerocruze has been a proven device for a long time already… in other airframes…

 

Compare to the old BK spin-off team… Gary and Min…  (yes those Garmin guys) they had the same challenge… an AP that works… made deals with several MSers to borrow one of each of the various models to design mounts and test the installation…  Garmin GFCs are now available to buy for M20Cs to M20Vs….

If BK needs a launch playbook to follow… one can be assembled from reading all the posts around here…

Then expect the usual supply chain issues, quality issues, and whatever else can happen…

 

I don’t think my finance administrator would be sending a check without knowing about when she would be getting the device, or her money back….

And since the cost of money is no longer free… The discount for pre-paying….

 

Please BK, try to succeed.

 

What are we waiting for?

PP thoughts only, not a sales guy at STEC….

Best regards,

-a-

[EricJ]

22 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

It sounds all the world like they don't have enough capital to actually build them, so they are getting full money up-front, with no delivery commitment, in hopes of using the money to buy parts and manufacture!  What could possibly go wrong??

Parts and production costs are pretty small compared to the total cost of a program, and BK/TT production is well established on the same product for other aircraft, so I doubt that's the issue.    It's not clear how much of this is BK and how much is Duncan.    I have my suspicions, but no way to know.   I hope it gets sorted out soon.

 

[cliffy]

Visa has a 120 day dispute window  that I am following If I hear nothing in 90 days I'll be cancelling the order with Visa for non delivery

 

[LANCECASPER]

In my experience Visa and Mastercard side with the merchant in a dispute, while American Express sides with the Cardmember.

[Browncbr1]

It’s amateur hour….  No….  Amateur year….   No,    Years!

what an embarrassment 

[MikeOH]

10 hours ago, EricJ said:

Parts and production costs are pretty small compared to the total cost of a program, and BK/TT production is well established on the same product for other aircraft, so I doubt that's the issue.    It's not clear how much of this is BK and how much is Duncan.    I have my suspicions, but no way to know.   I hope it gets sorted out soon.

 

Ah, forgot Duncan was in the middle. Now my cynicism says Duncan is under capitalized and BK won’t extend them any credit. Yet, if I understand, Duncan has the STC… sheesh, what a royal CF!

[LANCECASPER]

I'm not sure what all of the confusion is about. Whenever I buy anything from Aircraft Spruce or Chief or anyone they want payment upfront, plain and simple. They don't bill me later. Even if it's a special order and going to be drop-shipped they charge my card. They don't stock everything but act as the Distributor for some items that the manufacturer ships out.  I realize that there are a lot of trust issues since this has taken so long but I can't imagine what the risk is, if a reputable company like Aircraft Spruce is handling the transaction, plus you have the credit card company to fall back on. The product is certified, it's already in a Mooney or two, either do it or don't, but having Aircraft Spruce charge my card wouldn't worry me in the the least. Spruce messed up an order once a few years back and I got an e-mail from Jim Irwin apologizing and making sure that everything had been handled. 

[cliffy]

As I mentioned a long time ago that the money looking fwd in small autopilots like TT/BK is NOT in civilian airplanes but in the drone world for deliveries.

This was even mentioned to me 4 years ago at OSH by TT. 

BK/TT may/might/are actually looking at that world and using us to keep the system alive while the other world matures. Just a guess on my part as the production of useable STCs for the A/P is almost non-existent and makes no sense from a business stand point and that BK has a total vacuum on any public commentary to the contrary

They're position/communications with the public makes no business sense what so ever. 

If there was any reasonable cost effective alternate I'd be there

It doesn't serve BK much good for extension to their other product lines by this fiasco 

I just wonder how much of their other products they actually sell?

[EricJ]

1 minute ago, LANCECASPER said:

I'm not sure what all of the confusion is about. Whenever I buy anything from Aircraft Spruce or Chief or anyone they want payment upfront, plain and simple. They don't bill me later. Even if it's a special order and going to be drop-shipped they charge my card. They don't stock everything but act as the Distributor for some items that the manufacturer ships out.  I realize that there are a lot of trust issues since this has taken so long but I can't imagine what the risk is, if a reputable company like Aircraft Spruce is handling the transaction, plus you have the credit card company to fall back on. The product is certified, it's already in a Mooney or two, either do it or don't, but having Aircraft Spruce charge my card wouldn't worry me in the the least. Spruce messed up an order once a few years back and I got an e-mail from Jim Irwin apologizing and making sure that everything had been handled. 

I think AS typically doesn't charge your card until something ships.   At least that's how they've handled stuff for me for years, especially if/when there's a delay, so AS asking for an up-front charge would seem unusual to me.

 

[JoeM]

AS said prepayment is required because this is a "special order". So it is outside of their normal "pay when we have it in stock ready to ship" model. I might be inclined to trust AS too, certainly more than Duncan, which is the company getting your money. But ultimately, once they have your money, they can drag it out a long time unless they give you a hard delivery date, which no-one is willing to do.  The clincher for me is that BK does not yet have the Mooney specific parts, although they claim to be in the process of ordering them. Too much uncertainty for me to give any of them $6K.

[Hank]

3 hours ago, LANCECASPER said:

I'm not sure what all of the confusion is about. Whenever I buy anything from Aircraft Spruce or Chief or anyone they want payment upfront, plain and simple. They don't bill me later. Even if it's a special order and going to be drop-shipped they charge my card. They don't stock everything but act as the Distributor for some items that the manufacturer ships out.  I realize that there are a lot of trust issues since this has taken so long but I can't imagine what the risk is, if a reputable company like Aircraft Spruce is handling the transaction, plus you have the credit card company to fall back on. The product is certified, it's already in a Mooney or two, either do it or don't, but having Aircraft Spruce charge my card wouldn't worry me in the the least. Spruce messed up an order once a few years back and I got an e-mail from Jim Irwin apologizing and making sure that everything had been handled. 

"I send you money, then you send me stuff" is the traditional method of purchasing.

It appears that BK's current TruTrak / AeroCruse / whatever method is "you send me the money, then sometime later I'll let you know when I might send you stuff" with the "sometime later" proposed to be measured in months, and no indication of the delay between "letting you know" and when the actual shipment may occur. So far, BK has been delaying at least 2 years with this autopilot for Mooneys. 

I am their ideal customer, looking to replace my Brittain AccuTrak and AccuFlight systems with one autopilot. But I'm not sending 6 AMU to anyone for them to hold, admire and caress with no idea when or if I will receive said product!

Whichever one is ready to ship upon my sending money will go into my Mooney:  TruTrak or Dynon. To the victor go the spoils, to no one goes a 100% prepayment with no firm delivery date. For anything at all.

When they are ready to deliver, I will consider buying one after checking to see if the competition is ready to deliver.

[Unit74]

I assume you guys are following this thread as well. 
 

 

[Hank]

12 minutes ago, Unit74 said:

I assume you guys are following this thread as well. 
 

 

Sadly, yes. I've been watching all TruTrak / AeroCruz / BK threads for several depressingly exhausting years now . . . .

It's time for a Dynon update!