tceq24443
Pre-Flight
Sharing an email I sent to BK and others as I believe there is occasionally a BK rep who visits this site and once in a blue moon someone will ask about this unit (I will update as needed.):
Sales and Leadership:
I wanted to share with you my experience as I considered purchasing a Bendix King (BK) KSN770 GPS navigator as I have a 1976 Piper Archer II with BK products in it and was considering upgrading with BK products.
I had the opportunity to purchases a new KSN770, install kit, and wiring harness for under $7,000.00, which sounds like a outstanding price, right? Yet after discussions with BK’s tech, various avionics shops, and some of your partners, who will go unmentioned as they have excellent products besides supporting BK products, I could not pull the trigger. Why? I had advice from “I would not put that unit in my airplane unless someone gave it to me” to “its DOA and you will have trouble selling your airplane with that unit in it” to “laughter”. Even advice from BK’s technical support was absolutely non-committal such as “except for data, we don’t foresee supporting that product after 5 years” (really, for a product that is maybe 5 years old, your competitor’s support cycle on GPS is about 20 years) to “we have no plans to upgrade this device any further’ to ‘there is no ability or plans to add Bluetooth or WiFI to that unit”.
I could go on and on. It is crazy to read or hear this from a company that is supposedly recommitting to general aviation. Your own people do not even like the product. Why would anyone buy it? No wonder this vendor was basically trying to give a new unit away. I was just hoping one BK Rep would say something good about the product or say something along the lines of “2019 or 2020 is going to be a good year for the KSN770 because we got plans to improve it or come out with a new product that will slide right into its tray”, but not one good thing from your own company. How is a potential customer supposed to have any confidence when buying this product? Sad and disappointing.
Please forward to your leadership team. If there is any way I can get the email to the leadership team, I will forward myself. Simply unacceptable to run (or ruin) a company/division like this.
Regards,
Sales and Leadership:
I wanted to share with you my experience as I considered purchasing a Bendix King (BK) KSN770 GPS navigator as I have a 1976 Piper Archer II with BK products in it and was considering upgrading with BK products.
I had the opportunity to purchases a new KSN770, install kit, and wiring harness for under $7,000.00, which sounds like a outstanding price, right? Yet after discussions with BK’s tech, various avionics shops, and some of your partners, who will go unmentioned as they have excellent products besides supporting BK products, I could not pull the trigger. Why? I had advice from “I would not put that unit in my airplane unless someone gave it to me” to “its DOA and you will have trouble selling your airplane with that unit in it” to “laughter”. Even advice from BK’s technical support was absolutely non-committal such as “except for data, we don’t foresee supporting that product after 5 years” (really, for a product that is maybe 5 years old, your competitor’s support cycle on GPS is about 20 years) to “we have no plans to upgrade this device any further’ to ‘there is no ability or plans to add Bluetooth or WiFI to that unit”.
I could go on and on. It is crazy to read or hear this from a company that is supposedly recommitting to general aviation. Your own people do not even like the product. Why would anyone buy it? No wonder this vendor was basically trying to give a new unit away. I was just hoping one BK Rep would say something good about the product or say something along the lines of “2019 or 2020 is going to be a good year for the KSN770 because we got plans to improve it or come out with a new product that will slide right into its tray”, but not one good thing from your own company. How is a potential customer supposed to have any confidence when buying this product? Sad and disappointing.
Please forward to your leadership team. If there is any way I can get the email to the leadership team, I will forward myself. Simply unacceptable to run (or ruin) a company/division like this.
Regards,
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