Rogerson Kratos Huge Repair Cost – Again!
 

Readers of this site will no doubt remember my posting of 2007 in relation to having a repair done on my Rogerson Kratos Attitude Indicator from my Agusta A109E helicopter - the display part number is 160E015-3.

Well, I have now had another fault in my unit and I was told by Rogerson Kratos that the repair cost could be anything from USD26,700 (AUD 34,300) to USD53,400 (AUD68,600).

Initially they insisted we pay USD3,500 (AUD4,500) up front for the evaluation charge. They have now come back and quoted me USD44,500 (AUD57,000) for the repair - and they have pointed out that the warranty will only be twelve months!

I have four of these displays in the helicopter and the helicopter is now over ten years old but has only done 850 hours. If the other three displays develop problems in the next twelve months, I could be up for over USD120,000 (AUD154,000) in repairs!

These stupendous costs are totally beyond my comprehension. How could it cost such a large amount of money to repair such a small device? If I had the Garmin IFR-approved 600 display, the quoted overhaul cost is USD1,200 (AUD1,540). How can the Rogerson Kratos price be up to 37 times more than Garmin? Even the large Garmin 1000 has a repair cost of around just USD1,500 (AUD1,900).

Can anyone advise if there is any alternative to having this unit repaired at a reasonable price? Or does anyone know if there is a supplier of second-hand units?

Another alternative will be to change my Agusta to Garmin displays – it would almost be economic to do this now. Does anyone know if there is a service bulletin for doing this?

In closing, surely U.S. law does not allow Rogerson Kratos to have a monopoly on this servicing where they will not give service information to anyone else and then charge incredibly high prices?

I look forward to any helpful advice.

Dick - I've found from extensive purchasing and repair experience in another field, that businesses who pull this stunt, have only about 3 things in mind when they quote outrageous prices ...

1. They're not really interested in the repair, so they quote high, on the basis they care not a whit, whether they get the job or not ..
2. The item is obsolete or becoming obsolete, so they charge excessively to ensure you buy the replacement product ..
3. They think you are a captive customer and they think you can't go anywhere else ..

I would investigate other instrument repairers who have the capability to do the repair, or change the indicator to another brand.

You could also investigate the possibility of acquiring a complete replacement unit from an aviation spares supplier. There are 7 x 160E105-3's listed below, try an RFQ and see if the quotes are sensible.

Avspares.com - parts search

Sounds a lot like Robinson Helicopters so I guess US law does allow it.

Those screens are rubbish anyway. I have not seen a Garmin fit in an E but could you revert to the more mecahncial fit (upper mechanical ai and lower ehsi). Or the newer pfd and combination with bezel keys? Or does that hit the modification level with attendant authority fees?

I think you are lucky to have had only 2 failures in 7 years! I know an operator with a fleet of these screens who had so many failures that they bought most of the stock to use as replacements as an insurance policy for them being superseded.

They have never been known for their reliability. If you are going to keep the aircraft, I would look at a refit, or sell it and get a newer aircraft?

To each according to his means
 

Hey Dick I once purchased a good used R22 for about the same as RK want for that repair! Very egalitarian of the helicopter industry to attempt to keep us all broke, rich & poor alike.

Heliflite have exchange EFIS in stock just swap the dud out & go flying man, we're not getting any younger!

Dick,

Have you spoken to these codgers - Avincorp

Thanks everyone for the advice. I am chasing all up
By the way. Are Rogerson Kratos units fitted to any current production aircraft?

Also who would be best to assist with certification of the Garmin 600 system in the 109E ? Only real difficulty I see is the autopilot coupling.

I have asked R K for a breakdown cost re parts and labor to no avail. Does anyone have contact details for someone who has worked there in the past?

Dick,

Apparently: Bell 412, Bell 427, Bell 430, Agusta A109E Helicopter, USAF C-18, Zeppelin NT, Boeing 727, 727 Simulators, Gulfstream 62, S-60, AS332, Erickson Air-Crane, Zeppelin LZ-07

I think you are chasing things the wrong way - go back to your friendly Agusta dealer and get Standard Exchange and suck it up.

RK probably have no connection or interest in the "end user".

I deal with Thales gear all the time and just do "standard exchange".

Fixed price - move on.

Getting your own gear fixed is the old way of doing things - we just change black boxes these days.

Plus it will be at the latest mod status.

RVDT. Have you any idea what the standard exchange price is? Last time I checked it was over $50,000 Aus .

I don't think agusta use RK anymore in their current production 109e.

Do you pay personally these costs ? Or do you work for someone who pays? Possibly that's why you have a different view?

You could fight this one for a long time Dick, before you won. Manufacturers will claim that their manufacturing/repair information is "commercially sensitive", and to hand out such information freely would be giving commercial advantage to others at the companies expense.

It took the vehicle smash repair industry in the U.S. a long time in the courts, and a lot of money, to force major vehicle manufacturers to release electronic repair information relating to vehicles, that the manufacturers had deemed "commercially sensitive".

The smash repairers declared it was costing them money to have to send vehicles under repair to dealerships, merely to deal with the likes of airbag disabling, and other extensive electronics in vehicles, that could have been done by the smash repairer.
As a result of the courts decision, the manufacturers were obliged to release a raft of electronics repair information - but not all it - because the courts did agree that some info was commercially sensitive.

Judging by the following employee reports, Rogerson Kratos can't justify their pricing on what they pay their employees - and it appears that the company is highly resistant to change. We all know what happens to organisations that resist change.

Rogerson-Kratos employee reviews

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and throw out a component that is not only unreliable, but unrealistically priced as far as repairs go. It appears you have plenty of choices for replacement of the Rogerson-Kratos unit, and most of them would appear to be an upgrade, anyway.
Never forget that electronics development is an area that advances extremely rapidly, and 5 to 7 yrs in the age of a component can often mean your "state of the art" component, is effectively obsolete.

Sarasota Avionics - category - EFIS-glass-cockpit

Don't forget that if you do upgrade, you may be able to sell your 3 working units for exorbitant prices...

Dick, AW don't use RK anymore due to reliability issues and costs!

Astronautics in the 109E/S and Cobham in the 109SP.

The Astronautics screens are plug and play for alter 109E's, but you would have to replace all four and they aren't really any cheaper than the RK screens. Slightly better perhaps, but with different issues!

As far as hooking up the autopilot to the Garmin. Don't. Just leave the autopilot with all its standard gyros and run the Garmin system separately. Much simpler and cheaper to STC.

I've gone down this road already with the G500H system and nearly managed to get an owner to do it, but he chickened out and replaced 3 RK screens instead! Could have done the whole STC just about for that money.

I can put you in touch with someone in North America who wants to do the G500H in the 109E, but I don't know how much help they would be to you from so far away.

Noooby. Can you PM me this organisations details. I have also contacted Garmin to see if they are interested in an upgrade . That would spread the certification over many aircraft.

Does anyone have an email for International Defence Systems? They have a display for sale but we can not find a way of communicating with them!

Dick - Here's the link to their "contact" page. As with many large organisations and companies, they do not advertise an email contact address to ensure corporate security.

IDS contact page

I sent an email to Tom Alloway, Director of Customer Service at Rogerson Aircraft asking quite simply,

Tom Alloway sent me the following reply:

Can you imagine such a lack of ethics? They want to get more than AUD55,000 from me but they are not even prepared to tell me what they are doing for this amount of money! I wonder how Tom Alloway sleeps at night.

It’s interesting … in my business career I have had very few occasions of dealing with companies that lack basic ethics. Possibly I have been fortunate.

Dick
Feel for you but this is what a few of us have been saying for years we are being taken for a ride, & the costs are escalating to a ludicrous extent.
RVDT
Your comment is what every manufacturer loves to hear, put in over priced new or refurbished equipment, a lot that was poor value to start with.
If the cost of these parts come out of your pocket, would you be so happy to spend $50K

Dick, you've been PM'd.

Let me know if there is anything further I can help with.

Re the Garmin cockpit: I would love a whole thread on aspects of what I am about to post, but thought that you may find this interesting Dick - especially with the passion you bring to change. I would like to have had the time to write a paper on the topic.... but time is something I don't have.

Given that the vast majority of our accidents are CFIT and so very few are engine failure related; AND
Given that CFIT almost never happens when pilots can see the ground...

then WHY are we so obsessed with the UK offshore's fixation on PC1 and not on bringing virtual or actual (NVG and IR) terrain displays to the cockpit?????

The reason I mention this to you Dick is that the Garmin cockpit has a very smart, very intuitive and very usable CFIT avoidance display and has been available since at least 2009 BUT it cannot be certified into transport category helicopters because Garmin and the FAA don't think there is a market there. It can be certified into the Class B machines and there is already an IFR Bo-105 that has been flying in Australia with the Garmin cockpit for several years - but I cannot fit it to our BK117! You should be able to get it for the A109...

But my question / point is: Why on earth does CASA not make sure this sort of tool gets certified instead of pursuing things like the PC1/PC2 requirement when we KNOW that this is not what is killing us?

Why are 3D terrain displays not mandated in all helicopters, including and especially transport category helicopters? Particularly those involved in night/IFR and EMS?

Why are the manufacturers still releasing cockpits that are not anywhere near the Garmin outcomes - B429, AW189, AW169, 412EPi, EC175, etc etc.
Why cannot I not retrofit our AW139 Airline Cockpit with a display that stops me hitting the ground because I can see it?- even after 3 CFIT in that acft type with another undetected descent below LSALT (all two pilot ops!)

You are somewhat blessed in the A109 that you could fit the Garmin cockpit but you may want to check it does not alter your operational category. For the rest us are too busy trying to ensure we have enough single engine power and correct HLS dimensions to worry about CFIT.

On second thoughts, I will start that other thread :8

I have just heard that there is one Agusta operator who has three of the Rogerson Kratos screens that are faulty – a potential cost of more than USD150,000 to get them serviced. He is now planning to get out of helicopters!

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!