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KFC230 / Aerocruze

Um, seriously, would anyone who can buy a GFC500 buy this? Or, for that matter, the KI300 instead of a G5/GI275 or E5/E1000? Why?

tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland

Try installing a GFC500 for 10K.

EBST, Belgium

airways wrote:

Try installing a GFC500 for 10K.

Try installing a KFC230 for 10K. As Peter pointed out the 10K figure is for the A/P computer box and the only use you have for that box alone is as replacement for an existing King autopilot.

I am surprised that King went through the effort of developing something that is competitive only as an upgrade for some of their earlier systems.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Slightly tongue in cheek, but Lafayette Avionics will do it for $12k you don’t really believe that the installed price for the King product will be $10k, do you? The King figures are just for the parts, the LAF quote is “installed”. Yes, the $12k from LAF doesn’t include eg. a GAD29, nor any of the G5s that are needed, and most anything past the basics is $3k each (pitch trim, yaw damp), a Mooney is $1k5 extra, etc, etc. so you end up with $20k as a realistic sum, but you end up with all new stuff, apart from the navigator, not just one new device driving (and being driven) by a panel full of legacy stuff.

But seriously, given King’s track record of late, with the KI300 as a main point of reference, I’d seriously think what the final cost will be.

That said, I bought a used KI256 a couple of weeks ago to keep as a spare. Mod 11 done. They seem to be going for around $500. With any luck, servos will also start popping up for us CBs to collect.

And, last but not least, I have a KFC200, so my installed price for the AeroCruze 230 is estimated at $24k…

tmo
EPKP - Kraków, Poland

tmo wrote:

Um, seriously, would anyone who can buy a GFC500 buy this? Or, for that matter, the KI300 instead of a G5/GI275 or E5/E1000? Why?

For the aircraft that is not on the AML STC list for GFC500/600?
No sure how you can cheaply replace an existing A/P on TB20/21 with anything.

EGTR

the only use you have for that box alone is as replacement for an existing King autopilot.

That’s exactly what I’d expect from a slide-in replacement.

$20k as a realistic sum

I’d figure more like $40K. And an avionics shop that does it for $ 12K stays away from my plane.

EBST, Belgium

Obviously installing anything from HBK now is a huge leap of faith. Nobody will be doing it because they think the company will be supporting it for long, or indeed will be around for long. I feel quite sorry for HBK because Garmin ate their lunch (a senior Garmin guy once told me, at a conference, how grateful they were to HBK for handing them the GA business on a plate) and then Avidyne ate what was left.

However, one can’t deny the (reportedly) tens of millions which Honeywell are pouring into this business.

The difference between 12k and 40k has to be much more than a cowboy versus a good installer. There has to be some hugely fundamental set of issues here, which either nobody here knows or nobody is commenting on. I can well believe European installations are zero or very close…

A complete autopilot will always be a few tens of k, by the time you have fitted the servos etc. The G500 won’t be any different.

The Trio and Trutrac boxes are just toys (in the European IFR context) because of the lack of pitch trim and lack of ILS support – see other threads – but even they would cost a lot more than the “list” by the time it’s done. I have not heard of any installation reports so perhaps the would-be customers also spotted these huge shortcomings in time.

The only way to get the cost down is by re-using all the existing stuff e.g. slaved compass system, pitch/roll reference (KI256 or whatever), and servos. Then 10k is possible. The box could easily be 10k. I have seen the KC225 (the “box” of the KFC225 system) listed for about 10k. If just connectors need rewiring, that could be done for a few k.

However, somebody with a Kxx150/200 is likely to have a 20+ year old installation – simply due to the negligible piston GA airframe sales in the last 20 years (Cirrus and Diamond are a separate route anyway) so are likely to need the servos to be “looked at” and they are a few k each.

Are there any Cirrus or Diamond aircraft with a Kxx150/200, in useful numbers?

The KI300 is not applicable to the KFC230, currently, which is utterly dumb.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Are there any Cirrus or Diamond aircraft with a Kxx150/200, in useful numbers?

I don’t think there are any. Diamonds used to have KAP140 and then they switched to GFC700.

Last Edited by Emir at 06 May 08:34
LDZA LDVA, Croatia

They talk about “open architecture” but I hope this means Aspen comes on their approved digital attitude source really fast !

sales pitch

EBST, Belgium

Far from being a ‘slide-in’ replacement for under $10K, it’s going to require a significant investment in many aircraft. It has to have a digital AHRS/ADC or ADAHRS source – this can be the Garmin or Aspen glass data or a dedicated box from BK.

If you have the remote annunciator for the KFC150 then this must also be replaced.
You can keep the KI256 as the flight director but you can’t use the attitude source so it drives you to the glass cockpit solution. In the case of replacing a KFC225, there is no route as the servos in the KFC225 are different to the KFC150 versions and the KFC230 AML STC specifically excludes new servo installations.

Probably the only route for a ‘new’ installation would be to install a KFC150 system if you could find one (assuming the aircraft is approved on an existing KFC150 STC and BK were willing to provide an LOA) and then effectively remove what’s necessary to then permit the KFC230 installation. The KFC150 has been out of production for so long that you probably can’t get all of the servo mounting bracketry and control cable hardware, and there isn’t data in the KFC150 STCs to allow these parts to be locally fabricated.

I’m aware of KFC150 servos that are no longer supported so how does this new autopilot work in those aircraft.

Not all of the advertised functions are available from the start.

Not a good move by BK, and I don’t think it’ll go very far.

Avionics geek.
Somewhere remote in Devon, UK.
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