What does Bendix branding of IFD mean for Avidyne?

Sorry, but April 1 is Monday. ;-)

Edited by chflyer - 29 Mar 2019 at 6:07pm

Depending on where you view, I can see good and bad for Avidyne in all of this. 

Edited by DH82FLYER - 30 Mar 2019 at 12:02am

I think I'm real glad I did not buy an KSN 770!

It's probably nothing more than a marketing agreement meant to get more Avidyne product in the field. I wouldn't read too much into it. Just a way to grow the business.   

B-K has not been a serious player in the GA arena since the late 90s when the Garmin 430 came out.  I put a B-K KLN88 loran in my Mooney about 1992.  It was a great box for its time.  It finally made it legal and possible to go IFR direct to almost anywhere.  Their later boxes were pretty much just KLN88s with the loran replaced by GPS.  Why they never developed competitors to the 430 escapes me.  My suspicion is that heir hubris and arrogance led them to believe that their dominance could not be toppled.  Silly attitude since they did exactly the same thing to Narco 20 years earlier.

On the face of it, this is no different from other rebrandings that commonly happen in the GA avionics world.  Avidyne does it a lot:  The AXP340 is mostly a Trig unit under the hood.  MLB100/Skytrax100 was a rebranded Navworx product, and it's been replaced with a rebranded FreeFlight product.  The innards of the AMX240 are PS Engineering.

MysticCobra wrote: On the face of it, this is no different from other rebrandings that commonly happen in the GA avionics world.  Avidyne does it a lot:  The AXP340 is mostly a Trig unit under the hood.  MLB100/Skytrax100 was a rebranded Navworx product, and it's been replaced with a rebranded FreeFlight product.  The innards of the AMX240 are PS Engineering. But this comment in AOPA's coverage of the announcement was interesting:  "And BendixKing is not just rebranding and integrating these products, Fymat noted. “We have plans for what we want to do to develop those products.” He said those road maps will guide future developments." Not clear how much B-K's hand is now on Avidyne's tiller.  Who's driving the boat?

That's from months ago.

I've long said that I think the GA market will bear two equal players in the market with a number of smaller specialty vendors (think Aspen, Trutrack, etc.). It has been my long belief that Avidyne is that second player that can capture the market and compete on value and function. However, in order to be a second player, you need to have a complete solution of products and currently Avidyne is lacking two major pieces - a PFD, and Autopilot, and possibly a third which is a dual band ADS-B solution. Without these, I do not think you can truly compete for a customer's panel retrofit.

I'm seeing people spend 70-90k on completely new panels, and today, Avidyne can do a lot awesome, but there is a problem when it comes to the PFD and Autopilot.

BK has basically ruined their reputation with consumers and dealers. They have orphaned many products, alienated their dealer network and consolidated down to 4 repair stations, one of which doesn't even service small GA. It's bad.

Now, with their new approach, they do have some new self developed products such as a PFD and Autopilot. However, they advertise the PFD as a 4K screen when in reality, it isn't even close to 4k, it is barely more than 1080P which is just dishonest advertising. The Autopilot with touch screen looks like a high school science project and not a quality component.

This new rebranding of the IFDs does raise my interest in that possibly I could have a real PFD to compliment the IFDs currently installed. So, potentially, this could play well.

I will say it again, Avidyne's IFDs and R9 for that matter, with touch screen (ok, not for R9), and buttons gives the user the perfect blend of user interface. I am not a fan of touch only interfaces. I want knobs and buttons. The PFD4000 was going to be just about perfect, and I think Avidyne should complete that project. The DFC90 is awesome, we need some small lightweight digital servos, and we are good to go.

Anyway, BK, interesting and may prove to be complimentary to the already great Avistack.

Edited by Gring - 01 Aug 2019 at 10:51am

Taking a deep breath.....This is hard for me to say, but I would buy something made by G, before I buy anything with BK label on it. 

And Paul, to add to that, I don't want a system based on a small experimental avionics company. I want a fully certified and tested equipment with proven reliability. Even the reliability of the Aspen gives me pause.

I think BK reliability history has been great, however, we are talking about a new generation of employees, systems, processes, and procedures and we will have to see how that works out.

I'm a little concerned about rebranding in some cases. Take the KI256 replacement AI. It is built from the Sandia Quattro product which has tremendous software issues. I would not be an early adopter of that, even if/when my KI256 goes toes up.

Edited by Gring - 30 Jul 2019 at 11:42am

Well, Aspen Nav-Data is by Jepp, and the Chart Data is from SA.

Edited by n7ifr - 30 Jul 2019 at 7:19pm

Gring wrote: Here is something to watch.  If you notice, we are moving from a society of ownership to a society of consumption by subscription. Nearly every successful company has either started or is moving to a subscription model for revenue.  It is easier to manage, easier to plan, and in my opinion has several key benefits.  Here is the interesting part, you can now even purchase a car on a subscription model.  Porsche sells an auto subscription that includes - the car, all maintenance, insurance, and registration, and allows unlimited swapping of models, all done through a smartphone app.  It is called Porsche Passport, and you will see this catch on with other auto manufacturers - mark my words. Why do I say this?  BK announced an avionics subscription model. Now, I personally don’t know how this will work, or if it will be successful given the complexities of airplane ownership. For instance, how do I sell the aircraft with non owned equipment.  But, this will be very interesting to watch, and it does show some forward thinking.  I just don’t know if it is the right kind of thinking.