Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Exchange Autopilot options for a TB20

A recent report on a US site is that STEC have received interest from only 3-4 TB owners, so this is not likely to happen (STEC3100).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I saw on a US site that Garmin are looking for interest to certify the GFC500 for the TB20/TB21. This is the link

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/forms/autopilotinterest/

I don’t know any more but judging from the underwhelming interest in this thread and in the US Socata user group, nothing is going to happen It reminds me of a proposed project (@placido might remember) to get a Tornado Alley STC for a turbo on the TB20.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Same thing happened with the S-TEC 3100 STC and Mooney owners who clearly were not interested even though terms were very favorable for the first buyers. I think S-Tec found that they also could not find enough interest for the TB series and some others they did not pursue directly.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

These companies need to invest in these products.

Even in the US it is very hard to get people to stick their hands in their pockets for an autopilot STC, unknown cost, unknown installation cost, unknown reliability, unknown vendor policy on supporting it, etc.

In Europe it is 10x harder. Another thread.

The TB20/21 is not a bad market. If one player does it, likely nobody else will bother, so they will have the ~1k airframes to themselves as the potential market. STEC is the only player as a King replacement. But they must do ILS, not some box which does just LPV. Almost nobody in Europe will replace a “sort of working” autopilot which does ILS with one which doesn’t but flies fantastically the rest of the time.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

STEC is the only player as a King replacement. But they must do ILS, not some box which does just LPV.

The S-TEC 55x will do both if properly set up. But if I have to choose between it and a KFC150 or later, the King products are massively better. In connection with a GPSS converter and the possible LPV solutions, a KFC 150/200 or later can be a very nice solution indeed and there would be no reason to replace them unless a real digital AP with FLCH and similar functions would get STC’d. But that does not appear to happen as the numbers particularly for the TB20 are relatively small where people would replace a full blown KFC for another system. Other makes are better here in terms of takers, e.g Pipers with their old autocontrols or vintage Mooneys or such which do have S-Tec installations already. But apparently the market even there is not large enough to convince either of the AP makers to actually shell out of an STC.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Yes the KFCs fly very well, and work well with GPSS / roll steering converters. The main long term maintenance issue is the KFC225 fitted to post-2000 TB20/TB21s (and a very few TB10s, since their sales were very low by then due to overpricing) which regularly burn out their servos. Some owners ripped out this otherwise excellent autopilot (probably as good as any of the later “digital” ones, and anyway the KFC225 is “digital”) and put in the STEC 55X which does no more, flies less well, but at least doesn’t burn out the servos.

My comment about not flying ILS was regarding the Trio and Trutrac units which are GPS-source only. They can’t even track a VOR or LOC. They also don’t do the elevator trim which would be an utterly astonishing limitation for an IFR aircraft. I really wonder how many people installed them (would be in the US) and discovered this only afterwards… it’s not the sort of Q most would think of asking!

The “marketing problem” is that there are aircraft types with much bigger fleet sizes (e.g. Beech, Mooney, Cessna, Piper) and these are what makes the marketing men salivate. Unfortunately everybody else is already going for that market. In business it is better to be a dominant player in a small market than a barely relevant player in a big one, but that isn’t how “modern marketing” people see things.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

My comment about not flying ILS was regarding the Trio and Trutrac units which are GPS-source only. They can’t even track a VOR or LOC.

…or even fly headings, only tracks!

I looked at the Tri Pro Pilot A/P at AERO last year and its user interface is amazingly bad.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 28 Feb 10:09
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

or even fly headings, only tracks!

You are kidding, surely??

This can’t be for a plane. For a kite, maybe.

But, yeah, I can see that not supporting magnetic heading means it can be installed in a plane which doesn’t have a fluxgate i.e. a slaved compass system. But nobody does that in IFR, surely?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

You are kidding, surely??

I wish I were, but that’s how I understand the operating manual for both autopilots.

a plane which doesn’t have a fluxgate i.e. a slaved compass system. But nobody does that in IFR, surely?

I’ve done most of my IFR flying in aircraft without a slaved compass system. It’s not fun but doable.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Why ? It does the job, and a magnetometer is not needed. If ATC asks for heading 150 and you fly a 150 track, they won’t complain, no ?

LFOU, France
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top