I have recently been given the attached photo/diagram of just how the Garmin G500H would go in the Agusta – it looks pretty good to me. What do others think?

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8fdrw24u.jpg

Looks cool - does it cover the minimum backup instruments though? Or do the copilot displays provide that?

Are the Garmin units type approved for the A109?

John, there looks to be an electronic backup to the left of the pilots screen, so that is sufficient for IFR backup instrumentation.

One of the emails that has been sent to me states that sometimes it’s a diode inside the unit that fails and then they charge the standard repair cost. Can you imagine that? If this is true, it shows there is a basic lack of ethics.

Can anyone advise if they know someone who is dismantling Agusta 109 aircraft? There must be someone around who is likely to have some spares but is not listed anywhere.

Not AW109 related, but in case of interest:

IL 429-15-01: Rogerson Kratos display unit anomaly (27 May 2015)
I/C

Any electronics engineer worthy of the title, should be able to find the faulty component and , provided it's a standard component, change it.

There will now be a massive tirade about how safety-critical and rigorously-enforced quality-control is in "certified" equipment.


BULL and FLANNEL ! It's unreliable crap, but assembled from quality-assured, inadequately-specified components.

If the above was UNTRUE, there would not be this horrendous failure-rate.

I see an exploitative, immoral ripoff.....If I were Dick, I'd be having a GOOD electronics man to have a dekko and replace sub-optimal components with better-specified items......this will give A MUCH MORE RELIABLE AND SAFE
bit of kit....and, if you say nowt, who's to know?- unless your enhancement cascades another engineering failure to the forefront!
I have come across IC's where the ID has been deliberately sanded off and whole boards coated in black, opaque varnish in an attempt to conceal component- values.



For the non-electronic people.....all circuits are made from about 4 basic building-blocks....Resistors, capacitors, inductors and semiconductors.....
Integrated -circuits are simply collections of the above, encapsulated in one package... Manufacturers of products can , and do, have these "chips" custom-made for them, rather than using "off the shelf" stuff.....this ties their monopoly -supply of that chip unless someone sits down and reverse-engineers the circuit to ascertain the chip's function and if there is a "work-round.

My daughter actually designed some chips for the Large Hadron Collider.

in that case, they were custom -made (probably at vast expense!) and not much use to anyone who isn't detecting Quarks, Higgs Bosons and stuff :}

Commercial applications have much bigger production-runs and the price tumbles.

Average cost of ANY low-voltage standard component, varies from about 2p to £5....work it out! a couple of hundred components...say£100 the rest for the circuit-board, case and hardware.....say £50 for a display....the rest is admin, labour and PROFIT...oh, sorry, return on intellectual property.

...and certification...

Perhaps certification should be revalued with on going reliability as a criteria.
Tend to agree with costings CS

I wonder if the staff at RK reflect the lack of ethics of the company?

It would be poetic justice if they did.

Must be a terrible place to work.

Dick, did you end up working out if the Garmin system could go in the 109? If so who did it for you?

No. Can't get anywhere with the Garmin equipment.

I told Kratos to throw my unit in the bin but they sent it back to me at further expense to me.

My Long ranger has the Garmin units including satellite weather. It's fantastic.

And Karma will get Rogerson Kratos- it always does!

Dick - put you other hat on please.
Can I get $10,000 if I can prove Karma exists?

James Randi will give you $1 million!

Hi Dick, just seen this unit advertised by Apple International, would it help (fit), haven't really been following this thread but have every sympathy regarding over priced avionics being forced on us operators.....

Agusta 109S EFIS UNIT
P/N 109-0900-71-1A01, Serviceable Condition, Only 21.7 Hours since new. OEM 8130-3 with EASA Dual Release
Immediately available

109S uses Astronautics displays. Plug and play swap with the Kratos, but you have to swap all four at once.

Nice find though!

Not that industrial espionage is ever a laughing matter, but just for Mr. Smith:

Man guilty of stealing, distributing trade secrets of Pasadena avionics company

I/C

Keep in mind that you are buying parts and services for a 10 + year old helo (market value perhaps $1.5 million U.S.) at 2016 prices. This helo purchased new today would sell at something like $7+ million U.S., and the prices quoted for repair may not be so out of line with this in mind. One issue with electronics intensive avionics is that parts (semiconductors for example) tend to go obsolete and become unavailable much more rapidly that with electromechanical instruments. Creating a pretty picture of the panel with Garmin displays is by very far the easiest part of such an update, especially if it is intended to maintain SPIFR certification. The development cost alone, including certification, could easily be more than the value of the helo. Such an update ripples through many if not most systems. Integration (including certification) with the autopilot would seem to be a daunting challenge. And, the developer must put a hefty price on such an update to have some hope of recovering the development/certification cost and turning a reasonable profit considering that the number of such updates purchased is likely to be quite small. IMHO, there are two practical ways to deal with this situation: 1) bite the bullet and maintain what you have as needed (of course, looking for the most economical way to do this, possibly by purchasing used, certified replacements), 2) sell the 109 and move to something more affordable.

AW in Philly is working on an STC to replace the Kratos displays with 2 large format Astronautics units.

Anticipated cost is AROUND US$120k for the complete kit. Installation should be done within one day. If all goes well with development, STC approval is planned for 1Q 2017.

So hang in there Kratos users, help is on the way!