Was the Altimatic made by Piper or was it re-badged?
Peter wrote:
Was the Altimatic made by Piper or was it re-badged?
AFAIU, Piper never made their own autopilots. Piper branded A/Ps were manufactured by Edo-Aire Mitchell and were later taken over by Century Flight Systems.
Peter wrote:
Was the Altimatic made by Piper or was it re-badged?
I think all the Piper AP’s were actually Mitchell I believe. There are some similar installed in other airplanes which are called accordingly.
(just seen, @Airborne_Again beat me to it… and yes, some of them in non Piper Installations are called Century.. )
A lot of these are still installed:
Piper never made their own autopilots
It would amaze me if they did, but who supported these products during the supported life of the item, or the airframe? The documentation just mentions Piper only.
It is still installed in many airplanes because it serves as the only DME on board.
I bought a King KLX 135 Comm/GPS brand new in 1990, having used another in a friend’s 180. No map, but a decent unit. It went U/S last fall, ‘first trouble ever with it. When I inquired, the avionics shop I do business with said that there was no longer any King support to work on it, it should be considered scrap. Hmm… I see them on Ebay for US$2500. That’s big money for a unit I’m pretty sure I cannot have serviced if needed, so, no….
By happenstance, I was able to buy the original one out of the 180 as is for $200. It worked, so I used it for a few months, then it presented an error code. It became undependable. Just, in the nick of time, another came available, so I offered $200 – accepted. It seemed to work, though the controller yesterday said it was staticy when I transmitted in flight (though fine on the apron). So I called the avionics shop again, as now I have three of them – volume service?
I was referred to a shop in the US who now will service them (no one in Canada at all). The US shop said $150 to look at it, none left repaired for less than $450, and the average cost was $1000, plus the cost to ship two ways – so, no. It’s not worth investing ~ $1000 for a 31 year old unit with a poor outlook for further service. My next few flights will include the question to ATC “how staticy?”, and I’ll decide from what I’m told, but the writing is on the wall for old radios…. It’ll be time to move on soon…..
There is a KNS80 fitted in an aircraft that I fly ( for instruction) To my utter surprise it still functions perfectly………….. but my students tell me I am the only person old enough to know how it works.
A_and_C wrote:
but my students tell me I am the only person old enough to know how it works.
Would they be surprised to know that you can probably also use LORAN? Though on the shelf now, I still have the King LORAN which was in my plane when I bought it – it was a selling feature at the time! I was very suspicious of GPS when it first came around, how could it be more precise than LORAN? Then I flew a few hundred hours in a 182 with both LORAN and GPS, and I was able to “transition”!
@PIlot_DAR, do you mean they finally recommissioned LORAN in North America? US and Canadian stations were turned off in 2014 (if I remember correctly), but there were discussions at the governmental level about resurrecting them. Great if they did.
I heard murmurings about LORAN being recommissioned, as it was not vulnerable to interference, but I don’t think that it ever got any further than the murmurs. I don’t think that civil users would accept it, once they had had a taste for the precision of GPS. I thought LORAN was great, and with some skill was certainly adequate for general navigation. My friend and I used one for a Transatlantic flight, by referring to a North Atlantic LORAN over printed marine chart, it worked a charm if you knew how to do it. That was, of course, before GPS existed, so the seeming “precision” of LORAN across the ocean was wonderful, compared to a clock, log sheet, and occasional ADF fix.
