REFLECTOR: Reflector Digest, Vol 60, Issue 16

Scott Baker sbakr at comcast.net
Tue May 5 22:22:19 CDT 2009


Brooke,
Pls call me at the Velocity factory for follow up discussion about this.
Thanks,
Scott Baker

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Brooke Wolf 
  To: reflector at tvbf.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2009 9:52 PM
  Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: Reflector Digest, Vol 60, Issue 16


    Glad you asked Andy!  What is your take on Continental 550's out of Performance Engines in California?  (Anybody else, please chime in).


  Brooke




    From: "Andy Millin" <amillin at sbcglobal.net>

    Date: May 5, 2009 4:30:50 PM EDT

    To: "'Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list'" <reflector at tvbf.org>

    Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: Blue Mountain and GRT

    Reply-To: Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list <reflector at tvbf.org>




    Ok Brooke, what do you want to know about engines?  :)

    Andy

    From: reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org] On Behalf Of Brooke Wolf
    Sent: 05-05-2009 4:06
    To: reflector at tvbf.org
    Subject: REFLECTOR: Blue Mountain and GRT

    Ok Andy and Michael.  You are making it easy.  For me it will be Aerocomposite Prop and GRT avionics.  Now about that engine!!?

    Brooke


    On May 5, 2009, at 3:12 PM, reflector-request at tvbf.org wrote:

      From: Michael Watson <mikewatsspg at gmail.com>
      Date: May 5, 2009 2:26:22 PM EDT
      To: Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list <reflector at tvbf.org>
      Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: Blue Mountain Avionics
      Reply-To: Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list <reflector at tvbf.org>


      GRT HX is the way to go. These guys are innovative and have one of the best
      support system in the industry. They just added Flight Director and AHRS driven
      Angle-of Attack to their synthetic vision HITS unit and they are relatively cheap.


      On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 10:51 AM, Andy Millin <amillin at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
      Warning: This is another one of my long winded posts … you may want to ignore it now!


      Evaluating a product can be a difficult subject to broach on the Reflector.  On one hand, if you have done the research, the community can benefit.  On the other, it is easy to come off as a shill.  I’m not selling anything!!!


      I remember when Blue Mountain debuted at Oshkosh.  They did not have a working, deliverable unit.  They had a demo unit and were taking deposits and orders.  They had the largest display I had seen available in glass.  It looked great.  I don’t normally like it when products are described as “sexy”, but the Blue Mountain stuff was sexy.


      At the time I think Chelton was advertising that they had just dropped the cost of a dual display system from $50,000 to something like $36,000 with the tag line “now cost isn’t a factor!”.  Well hell, buy three!!!  If BM was selling this big, beautiful unit for $12-14K, the price was very attractive.


      Many people recount that Greg Richter is one heck of a salesman.  He knows how to make things look good.  He has always had highly polished marketing material.  He knows how to sell the “sizzle”.


      My friends Jim and Heather Butcher took the plunge and put down a deposit.  BM said the $12K was a show price.  I think the units went from $12K to $14K, but I don’t know the exact numbers.


      Jim and Heather finished their Europa.  They installed the BM EFIS and EIS.  From the beginning Jim had problems.  Features that were promised were not in the unit.  Other features technically would work, but Jim had to do all the research.  They have a Rotax.  Greg said that it would work well.  It turns out they were the first to install BM with a Rotax.  There was nothing to copy from and BM didn’t know Rotax at all.  Support was minimal.  It was impossible at times to tell if the unit was malfunctioning or just not calibrated correctly.  Jim is very savvy and very tenacious.  He dug in.  In the process he found several bugs in the software.  He reported them to BM.  All the while getting more frustrated.  They were supposed to be flying not debugging a very expensive piece of equipment.


      When Jim had most of the EIS working they went flying.  The whole scenario came back for the EFIS.  I believe the unit was pulled three times and sent back for update or modification.  Jim is a very smart guy and he just was not getting it to work.  During his test program, the ELT came up on his card.  He had yet to turn it on during flight.  He did so.  When he keyed the mic on the radio, the ELT went off.  How is that related to the EFIS????   Jim started working the problem.  He found that with the EFIS off, the problem never happened.  With the EFIS on, it always happened.  He never researched it further.  He had been fixing bugs for the better part of two years and had just had enough; the last straw.  The unit was pulled.


      Jim called BM and asked if an upgrade to the newer box might solve the problems.  BM said it might, but that they would only give him pennies on the dollar for his current unit.  That might well have been their last contact with the company.


      They replaced it with GRT.  Jim is not troubleshooting problems.  It works.  They are happy.  They are flying.


      Over the years I have heard many stories about BM.  It is hard to be in the Experimental Community and not know at least one person that bought BM, tried to make it work, and then pulled the thing out and replaced it.


      I have good friends that spent a great deal of money and got nothing but headache and heartache.  These are my friends and I have always wished them well.  I wanted this to work for them.


      It is also hard at times to hold your tongue when you hear someone say they want to buy BM.  I wince.  I hate badmouthing anyone.  I want to balance that against someone getting burned because I didn’t have the guts to speak up…


      I’m posting this in the genuine hope that it might be of use to someone in the decision process.  I have nothing against Greg Richter.  I don’t own his products.  I think competition is good and the more options we have, the better.  Let me qualify that, the more GOOD options we have, the better.


      Like anything else,  please*10^10, do your research.  (field performance, support, upgrade policy, etc…)


      In the interest of disclosure:  My good friend Carlos works for Grand Rapids Technologies.  My research has led me to believe I want their equipment in my plane.  I don’t work for GRT.  I have heard very good things about Dynon as well.


      FWIW,


      Andy


      =====================================


      Andy Millin

      amillin at sbcglobal.net





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