Avionics/Bendix-Honeywell

[wa4jr]

WARNING! MAJOR VENT EVENT AHEAD My airplane has, for the last three months, been sitting at Hagerstown MD awaiting completion of a simple NAV/COM and audio panel installation. After being supplied with a PMA7000 audio panel that was a "display model" with no brains, I have managed to find a NIB PMA7000 and that is ready to go. The KX-155 is another story. Recieved a nice looking KX-155 with fresh yellow tag and documentation only to find that when the COM side is flipped, the NAV frequency would also change. Back it went to the outfit I bought it from and on to their avionics shop. $650 later the display is now intermittent where it was previously working just fine...oh the flip flop circuit is still messed up. Soooo off to Honeywell it goes since no local shops have the talent and/or interest to work on it. A month later and the radio is still at Honeywell with no end in sight. The dealer is also had enough of Honeywell, so yesterday he bought another KX-155 w/GS and it is being shipped to Hagerstown. The avionics shop in Hagerstown said they had also been having problems with Honeywell concerning repair jobs they have there.

So whats up with the state of the GA avionics industry? Anyone else had problems with service from Honeywell? I'm scared to send my KLN-88 to them for database update and a service bulletin issue. I might be under my tombstone by the time it gets back! Bendix/King/Honeywell seem to be disinterested in serving the GA market, and there are no new inovations coming from them. Collins is gone from the GA market. How about Narco? Do they still manufacture new equipment? I know they do repairs, but I am starting to wish I had gone with a Narco MK12D for my NAV/COM/GS box. If Garmin is allowed to purchase UPS, then we are all going to be in one hell of a pickle as there will be only one supplier of GA avoinics charging what they wish. The prices are already out of this solar system as they want $10,000 for a GNS-430...WITHOUT intallation and certification! And I'm supposed to purchase and install this equipment in an airplane that is only worth $40,000? Are they crazy or am I just living under a rock? Who the heck is buying this stuff to drive the GA avionics market in this direction?

On the plus side, while my airplane waits with the air seeping out of the tires, I purchased a nice Narco COM-120 on e-bay for $280 (yea baby)and had it installed as my second COM...or primary if the KX-155 never materializes. I also had the second ACK-30 encoder to fail within a year ripped out and replaced with a Sandia unit...yes expensive but better than getting those FAA letters in the mail for bad Mode C transmissions.

So I am thinking I may be better off to leave the transponder in the airplane and tear all the other electronic stuff out and just use a handheld transceiver...no I've weathered the storm this far...I'll complete my avionics nightmare. So anybody want to relate a worse avionics story and make me feel good today

George, I remember you saying something in an earlier post about just sitting in front of your airplane in the hangar with a cold Guiness (or was it Bass) in hand. I think that type of activity is in order for me right now...but I don't have an airplane in my hangar

You have now exited the VENT ZONE

[blueldr]

My heart bleeds for all you guys that indulge in those expensive radios that cannot be repaired for under $650.00.
My Com 760 TSO has worked perfectly for over ten (10) years now. It puts out a better and stronger signal than my previous King radios ever did and it cost $625.00 brand new. I dumped all the King junk after the second $375.00 repair crapped out and I've always been sorry I waited so long.

[N3243A]

<<<<The prices are already out of this solar system as they want $10,000 for a GNS-430...WITHOUT intallation and certification! And I'm supposed to purchase and install this equipment in an airplane that is only worth $40,000? Are they crazy or am I just living under a rock? Who the heck is buying this stuff to drive the GA avionics market in this direction?>>>>

Let's face it, we are on the lower middle class spectrum of aviation. Not so low as to be in the ultralight, and light sport class but sure as hell not in the Bonanza, Cirrus, Lancair and multi engine class either. So the high end avionics stuff that is worth 1/3 or even 1/2 the value of our airplanes isn't going to sell to us. That's why we have Flying magazine , where the editorial staff get to test all the stuff like uplinked or downlinked real time NEXRAD weather, MFD's, PFD's etc. in their Barons, and 210's and we just go "well that's pretty cool" but back to reality.....

My King KX-170B has been trucking along pretty well and I have always found the Model number of this radio to be so appropriate.

Bruce

[N1478D]

GOTTA find a KX-170A! Maybe a GREEN one!

[GAHorn]

I've got one I'll give ya' Joe! (Was gonna toss it out anyway.)

Just as a note of interest,...I was in El Paso the other day, and their avionics shop has a glass-case of antique radios with their original prices listed. The Narco Mk-II Omnigator and the GE transceiver listed in 1948 for $925 each. The airplane sold for $5475 with the GE already installed. So the latest radios of the period were about 20% of the price of the airplane.

[spiro]

vent zone revisited. Rather than recount a Bendix/King experience of my own, here's a copy of a letter I wrote them almost exactly 4 years ago:

>>
Several months ago I purchased a "factory reconditioned" KY-97A from Pacific Coast Avionics (s/n X21959). I was very pleased when it arrived as it looked nearly brand-new and worked great. However, the first two times I took an extended flight with it it quit working once warmed up (displaying "EErr 0.00") - once while in controlled airspace!

I sent this radio in for warranty repair through my local dealer, Northern Lights Avionics, and was told it would be back in a week. More than six weeks later I got a different radio back and was told they (you) lost the radio I'd sent in. This replacement radio (s/n X19387) looked very used and had somebody else's N-number marked on it. The automatic squelch does not work properly - it is so noisy that it is essentially unusable.

I looked up the registered owner of the N-number marked on the radio (N95HB) and called him. He told me that he'd purchased the radio brand-new and it had never worked for him, the problem being exactly the same as I was experiencing.

I am now returning this radio for repair or replacement. Several people I have now talked to have said that my experience with your "factory reconditioned" radios is very common, they are usually lemons. It appears to me that when a radio is sent in for warranty repair you do a very brief and cursory check and then send the radio back out, untouched, as "factory reconditioned".

My single radio plane has now been unusable for several months because of the junk you sold me. This is a strong reason for me to never consider buying another King product and to tell everyone I know the same. I hope that this time you will actually repair AND TEST the radio before sending it back out - or send me a new one that is not a lemon.
<<

there was a *new* one on my doorstep within a week... And it works.

- paul

[russfarris]

Ah, the joys of aircraft ownership!

I went thru this drill over a year ago when the ten year old Narco 12D started to have an intermittent TX. When I called Nancy Narco (remember the old ads?) about sending it in for repair, I was told they had a TWO MONTH backlog! Which is completely unacceptable. I poured over Trade-a Plane and finally bought a yellow tagged KX-155 with KI-209 glide slope, at a good price. They also took in the Narco and it's CDI with glide slope for 1,000 bucks. The KX-155 has worked flawlessly ever since (Well, my shop hooked the glide slope up backwards, good thing I checked it out on a test flight!) I'm also lucky to have an outstanding avionics shop, located about 800 feet from my front door (yes, I live on the airport!)

Sorry to hear about your problems, John. The KX-155 is considered just about bullet proof, which is why I'm sure you picked it. I've seen them in turboprops like King Airs and PC-7s. You don't suppose that radio came out of an airplane that got dunked in the water, do you? That could cause no end of weird problems.

GA customer service is all over the map. UPS had my Apollo GX-55 for a data base and software update for less than a week...outstanding! Lightspeed headsets is also lightning fast on repairs. Narco is a bottom feeder. They make good radios, but service is rotten. I'm suprised about Bendix/King, I thought theyhad a good service rep. Hope you get all this striaghted out...Russ Farris

[GAHorn]

Well, ...what this exchange tells me is... there's very much a lack of consistency out there.
Re: King - I've sent radios direct to them, and rec'd them back in reasonable time with all squawks corrected and software updated as an additional free service. No complaint from me about King/Allied-Signal/Honeywell or whoever they want to be called.
Re: Narco - They told me over the phone they couldn't promise a turnaround time based upon my complaint because my complaint didn't sound like their radio was at fault. (My complaint was it wouldn't transmit when the outside temp was below 40 degrees F unless the radio was warmed up for 20-30 minutes. It only transmitted a carrier,...no modulation. Receiver was OK.) I sent it in to them. 5 days later it was back. I owed $120, and they said they "Could not duplicate the problem." I snatched the phone and called to give them a piece of my anger-management technique, and they asked me what audio/intercom I had. I told them it was a PS Engineering 1000 II, and that I'd already visited with PS Engineering and they'd confirmed that it couldn't BE the intercom because it was designed so that when it failed it failed in the safe-mode, meaning it dropped out of the loop. The radio would still transmit. (They said.)
Narco said to pull the PS Engineering connector out of the back of the intercom box and replug the connector into the "dummy" connector they were sending me. Sure enough. The Narco 810 worked perfectly.
I sent the "fail-safe" PS Engineering intercom back to them, and 2 weeks and $40 later it came back with a replaced internal relay. Not so much as a "sorry for having cost you $120 over at Narco" from them.
Narco at least issued a 1 year warranty on the radio because they'd serviced it. (Thanks Narco.)
Moral: If you have a PS Engineering intercom, make certain your hand-held microphone by-pass option is enabled and you have a hand-held mic in the cockpit. It only took me an hour to do that job myself.
But I'm happy with both King and Narco. (And at least Narco will offer a loaner/rental unit while they fix yours so you're not completely stuck without a plane.) Avionics shops don't like Narco however, because Narco pulled the plug on most of them for performing shoddy and/or non-standard repairs. Only "Master" dealers or the factory can perform repairs on Narco, but repairs are more reliable now and at least it re-activates the warranty.

[mrpibb]

I guess these days of aviation where unless you have a efis with mfd or cds a fmc to go with dfgs your pms with tmc and adiru with dfdmu you are s.o.l.
Didn't Lindbergh do with a knapsack and a peanut butter sandwich?
I have to agree that products and product support for general aviation "meaning airplanes under six figures in my opinion" have declined to cater to new high dollar go fast machines. Now there's nothing wrong with that but please at least humor us cause were the one's trying to keep aviation history flying.
Just my thought's

[rudymantel]

I was speaking with a Cessna sales rep at Sun' n' Fun last spring and he said they didn't expect to sell anything there, they were just showing the flag. Believe it or not, he said their typical new airplane customer was a rich guy with a student license who wanted a nice new airplane to learn in.
I can confirm that a fellow a couple of T-hangars down from mine was until recently a student pilot who owns a new Piper (whatever they call the Cherokee these days) and now that he got his private license was planning to upgrade to the retractable model (Arrow?)
Rudy

[Alterfede]

Hey guy dont complaint!! (well yes, complaint ) here in argentina, only a few radio repair stations, only in buenos aires, so if you live far (more then 300 km) is a pain in the a..... to have radios working. Sometimes the best thing you can do, is take the COM radio (not NAV radios) to any ham radio expert in the zone to see if he can fix it, also parts are brought from USA, so is another amount of money and time to get them. Remember, you live in aviation paradise, even for general aviation. Saludos

[rudymantel]

Fede, in many ways it's aviation heaven- as my old friend Desmond Norman used to say "You can make money with airplanes when you have water or mountains under your wings " ! And in Patagonia people really NEED airplanes ! What a great place for an air taxi business!
Rudy

[wa4jr]

Well I have another problem with our friends at Bendix/Honeywell and need some advise. All of my radios have been working just fine so the KX-155 and KI-209 is indeed a good choice. The problem now is my trusty KLN-88 loran receiver. I get a message "internal battery low" each time I power up the unit, and it takes many minutes to initialize. Sometimes it never initializes at all and I just go without it. The local radio shop said that they can try to replace the battery, but they can't get any parts for King equipment. So I called the repair and overhaul section of Bendix/Honeywell in Olathe KS to see about sending my KLN-88 in for service on the internal battery. Not a big job,perhaps 30 minutes on the bench and a small CR2032 lithium cell. $300 the nice lady quotes me in a completely serious tone! Seems it costs $275 for the simple act of taking my KLN-88 out of the box and sitting it on the bench! In fact, $275 is the minimum/standard charge to work on any King equipment! I don't know what kind of stuff they smoke out there in Olathe, but if they think I am going to plunk down $275 to have the priviledge of my KLN-88 sitting on thier bench for a simple battery replacement, they have another thing coming! I only paid $300 for the unit on E-Bay.

George, you may be able to help me here since you are a KLN-88 lover as well. I've taken every panel off the unit in an effort to find the battery. I've done many battery replacements on computers and ham radio equipment and it just isn't that hard....IF....IF you can find the battery. Kind evidently did not build the KLN-88 with service techs in mind as the battery must be hidden deep in the unit. Can anyone tell me where the battery is? Also...what type wrench is used to take the knobs off the front face? I've tried a variety of small Allen wrenches to no avail, and suspect King used some strange sort of spline wrench on the knobs.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[GAHorn]

John, you'd best "bite the bullet" on this one, unless you can find a local shop who's done this work before. Here's the problem: In order to replace the battery, the unit must have it's memory downloaded, and the unit must be completely powered down. (This is why it needs a battery to begin with...it has a memory unit that absolutely MUST be kept alive in order to properly function. Virturally all GPS have the same problem, and also will face an expensive battery replacement at the 10-12-year mark.) After the unit is stone-dead, the battery (which is soldered, not simply clipped in-place, as an assurance against vibration-induced momentary power-interrupts) is de-soldered and a new one installed.
Only then can the memory be brought back up online.
Then, the recertification process begins. The USCG Loran system updates are installed, new timing is updated for the loran chains, and a software update is installed to accomodate enroute IFR in Canada/Alaska is installed. Honeywell is required to completely re-certify your unit for IFR enroute and terminal, before they can return it to you. All things considered, it's not a bad deal actually. No handheld GPS is approved for even VFR use, much less IFR enroute/terminal.

(In other words, Honeywell is not really ripping you off.) You'll probably also want an updated database. Maybe they'll cut you a discount on that while it's in there?

[53B]

Hi John,

Try Bevan-Rabell in Wichita,KS. They were able to do several repairs to our flight school's KLN89B.

http://www.bevanrabell.com

316-946-4870