gallois wrote:
They certainly have the capability to retrofit or design afresh APs for Robins and Rallyes and at a competitive price. The question is “do they have the desire?”
Or is it even on their radar that they have that capability and might profit of a spin off on those drone APs.
As in this industry any form of competition is highly welcome in todays Garmin market, it would be quite desirable to have another provider.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
GA AP’s outperform the classic Airbus APs today,
I don’t know all of them, but although everybody do love the GFC500, this is a crap AP for me, wrt the VNAV e.g. Either airbus or collins AP can intercept for a 5 to 100t jet, but GFC500 cannot do it on a small PA28 if we just activate it less than a minute before starting a descent.
But are these APs 100k. If you go further into their blurb they are manufacturing a lot of systems for drones and such like.
I can’t believe the civil drone industry is paying 100k for an AP or even all the avionics on board.
They certainly have the capability to retrofit or design afresh APs for Robins and Rallyes and at a competitive price. The question is “do they have the desire?”
I think I might drop them another email.
Peter wrote:
Airbus are hardly going to be making avionics for GA, let alone the Robin fleet whose chief attribute (ask any part 21 avionics shop; some posts here) is talking about stuff and not coming up with cash when somebody does the STC.
Robin always has been a problem with this kind of stuff, primarily because of their messy model lines where even fans can not keep up with all the modifications and different models they have. If in a line of 200 airplanes there are 5 different sub-models (like in the HR-100 series) which each would need certification, it’s easy to see why not many have taken on this kind of thing.
But it’s not Airbus anyway, Airbus use Thales soft-and hardware.
Doing an AP for GA which has the capabilities of the standard A3xx AP’s is not difficult nor expensive for someone like this, actually some GA AP’s outperform the classic Airbus APs today, but it’s the numbers and certification hurdles which would be in the way. After all, nobody will buy a 100k AP because you have to offset 10 million certification cost over a few dozen units.
" And we haven’t seen any GA products from Thales, have we?"
I don’t know. One of the things I did think about was whether Thales sold their products under a different brand name. Which depends also on what we term GA.
Personally I include gliding , annexe 1 and ULM as GA. Others seem to limit it to certified aircraft Annexe2 and business aircraft including corporate jets.
From website:-
Thales onboard major programs
Thales is proud to be onboard prestigious aircraft programs amongst which (non exhaustive list):
In the civil transport:
Airbus A320 family, A380, A350 XWB
ATR-600
Boeing B787
Bombardier Global Express, Global 5000, 6000, CRJ700/900/1000, Learjet 85
Dassault Falcon 5X
Gulfstream G500, G600, G650
Sukhoi SSJ-100
In the military domain:
Airbus A400M
Dassault Mirage 2000, Rafale
Embraer KC390
Eurofighter Typhoon
In the helicopter sector:
Airbus Helicopter Tigre, H Force
Boeing Chinook
Leonardo A109, Wildcat
NH Industries NH90
Sikorsky Blackhawk, S76D
I know Badin Crouzet became sextant and I was told that they did still repair autopilots.
I’m still awaiting an answer to my question.
They have been pretty good at replying up until now. SFENA did the AP for Concord in the 1960’s.
gallois wrote:
I only knew it as a train company.
It started as SFENA then it became sextant avionique later Thales
Anyone doing electronics in the 1970s will prob99 be retired now, or dead. And we haven’t seen any GA products from Thales, have we?
This isn’t Airbus this is Thales which is one of the largest companies in Europe. It is also one of the world’s largest avionics companies that most of us in GA seem to have never heard of.
I only knew it as a train company.
What Badin-Crouzet has done since it got merged into other companies and now Thales I don’t know. It didn’t just make APs it made various other avionics too.
Dassault seems to repair most of these at one of their divisions.
But as I wrote “I don’t know”.
I started my research because some one asked some years ago about if there was somewhere to repair them and [personal stuff deleted]. Or words to that effect. I started asking around about where that shed could be found and was pointed in the direction of IIRC Sextant Aviation and after many twists and turns have gone on from there.
Thales are also now the umbrella under which Sefna or Sfena ( the makers of the Concord autopilot) operates. They appear to have combined a lot of one man, his dog and a Gaulois garden shed businesses.🙂
Airbus are hardly going to be making avionics for GA, let alone the Robin fleet whose chief attribute (ask any part 21 avionics shop; some posts here) is talking about stuff and not coming up with cash when somebody does the STC.
This is pipe dreaming.
Did Badin-Crouzet make any GA autopilots after those WW2 designs which were linked earlier? Those were sold on 1970s Robins and B-C died after that. The mission profile of the bulk of the fleet doesn’t warrant an autopilot (in viable sales volumes).
