Blue Mountain

I have been researching the Blue Mountain EFIS display with there intregrated autopilot and need some advice from other that have it.
I am looking at the sport.
I will be adding a GNS 430 for Approach and just the other day while scoping out there message board i came upon a thread of some unhappy campers. It looks like Blue Mountain's autopilot does not play well with Nav's from other manufactures. Meaning it looks like i can not use their AP to fly IFR.
Am I missing something here? Also it looks like the people at Blue Mountain have been misleading there buyers to think it works as advertised but now people are finding out that is not the case.
I do not want spend alot of money and time only to find out I am not getting what I payed for.
I have looked into alot of other options and the Dyon is very close but then I would have to go with Trutrak digII (forgot the model) and an external indicator. Alot more money than what Blue Mountain price would be if I went with the intigrated system.
Not looking to bash any manufacture but recent posts have me concerned and I would like some input about this company.

TruTrak and GNS-430

I have the TruTrak Digiflight II VSG and the Garmin GNS-430W. This is an awesome setup. I would highly recommend it to you.

The Dynon, Advanced and GRT systems have been widely installed with these components and are known to work well.

Bruce
N297NW
RV-8

scubadoo, I have a BMA EFIS Lite (G3) and GNS430

I also have the BMA AP and Sport (G2) EFIS unit in my plane as well as a SL30 nav/com radio.
The BMA EFIS units have their own GPS built in and the AP can fly correctly to any point in their database. So it is easy to fly to an airport or intersection and they even have virtual VOR (GPS based coordinates). All this work just fine. You can also select to fly a bearing or track.
What doesn't seem to work correctly is when I select for the AP to fly external VOR (or any external source). When I do this I do fly towards the VOR, but gradually drift off and by the time I pass the VOR I could be more then a mile off. I have had the same problem with trying to fly the ILS. The AP will intersect the inbound coarse and then fly through it. The AP will only correct when the deflection is almost full range and then fly back through the inbound coarse and out the other side. You end up snaking down the localize when you let the AP do the work.
By the way the EFIS nav marker work quite well and do correctly depict what the external radio is telling it. I can fly the ILS or go to the VOR if I fly the plane and watch the EFIS unit. I can also use the AP to fly a bearing as I watch the guidance markers and adjust the AP bearing. This way I can use it to fly an approach, but this is not what was advertised and not the way I want it to work.

Hope this helps you.

Kent

kentb said:

I also have the BMA AP and Sport (G2) EFIS unit in my plane as well as a SL30 nav/com radio.
The BMA EFIS units have their own GPS built in and the AP can fly correctly to any point in their database. So it is easy to fly to an airport or intersection and they even have virtual VOR (GPS based coordinates). All this work just fine.

Click to expand...

This is fine if you only want to fly VFR with their built in non-IFR certified GPS, but if you want the comfort of a true IFR GPS such as the 430 or 480 I found the Blue Mountain systems had many limitations.

I have not followed their recent products but, first; their autopilot design, while great in concept, fails in that their servo design is not well suited for the RV wing. You can make it work but it is a kludge at best. Secondly, without the Blue Mountain EFIS, the autopilot is useless. There is no way for the autopilot to function independently or take input directly from a NAV radio. Some rely on the autopilot as an independent back-up to the EFIS, if this is your intention, this is not the solution for you. Thirdly, the BMA EFIS can only interface with the GNS-430 via the analog interfaces (it emulates a regular CDI) so theoretically the autopilot *should* follow the emulated CDI needles that are depicted on the BMS EFIS. The ideal solution would be an ARINC-429 interface to the GNS-430 that would provide true course and flight plan data to the EFIS from a navigation radio.

Other issues I have with the BMA system is the clunky OAT sensor and they can not receive (via ARINC or RS-232) "Aviation" data from a GPS navigator so that your course, flight plan, etc would be available on the EFIS.

BMA EFIS has a pretty face but I would not feel comfortable flying it for anything but VFR.

I have installed two of these systems, without going into to much detail, make sure you have a completely seperate system so when the BM is out being worked on that you can fly your plane

Well, it is just a matter of your point of view...

There are thing about the BMA EFIS that could be better, but the functionality provide for the $ were unsurpassed (at least when I bought it two years ago). I looked into all kinds of unit back then. There were non providing HSI capability with at the less then $3000.00 price.

The EFIS's that I have would be just fine for IFR work. As far as accuracy is concerned the guidance with the external radio is very good. I would not couple the AP to the external NAV souce at this time. There is a software fix that is being promised. I am still waiting, but have hopes that this will be fixed.

I would have liked to see an ARINC-429 connection between the 430 and the EFIS. With this and the right software, the EFIS would be able to display the name of the current nav fix as well as the next one. Again this is unrelated to the AP problem.

I haven't seen any problem with the OAT. It is real neat that you get to see not only your IAS but also TAS on the display.

There are a number of units that are now on the market now in the under $5000.00 price range that would be worth considering. If I were buying now I would take a look at each of them.


Kent

Using EFIS One and flying along in VFR conditions on autopilot, my entire system locked up and my display froze. Customer service was not good. I never could get the system working reliably and neither could the factory even though it was sent back to them three times. I wouldn't trust my life to fly it in IFR conditions.

As a BMA customer, I asked the owner to reply to this and here is what he said:

"The AP works well in all modes but S turns more than is acceptable in some airframes in Ext Nav mode. We're working on that this week and expect to have a fix out for it within the next ten days. Just my luck, the RV is one of the planes that S turns horribly. Is a problem with the automatic gain setting.

-G"