KAP-140 Drop-in Replacement for DA40

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Diamond_Dan
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KAP-140 Drop-in Replacement for DA40

Post by Diamond_Dan »

I remember a post earlier this year where somebody mentioned a rumor of an upcoming drop-in replacement for the KAP-140. For the life of me I can't find the post. I would like to talk with the person or anybody who has heard something similar from a credible source.
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Rich
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Re: KAP-140 Drop-in Replacement for DA40

Post by Rich »

The only one I recall was an offer years back that S-TEC would develop a version of the 3100 to replace the KAP-140 in DA40s and even supply such a version for non-AP DA40s. But they required something like 10 or 20 pre-development commitment. Proposed price was not outlandish - roughly what the KAP-140 option was years ago - and a couple of owners signed on. Realistically it'd hardly be drop-in, though. Especially now since some of us have replaced the original HSI with Aspens or G5.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Rich
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Re: KAP-140 Drop-in Replacement for DA40

Post by Rich »

2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Re: KAP-140 Drop-in Replacement for DA40

Post by jwx96 »

Yesterday I watched a YouTube video by Martin Pauly, who flies a Bonanza, called "Finding the Best Autopilot in 2022." It was a good review of the new autopilots from STEC, Garmin, Ayidyne, Bendix King and others. The STEC 3100 and the 2 Garmin autopilots were finalists, but Martin quoted a 26 item preflight checklist for the 3100 that turned him off. He ended up going with Garmin GFC 600 for his A36. Future videos will feature the installation. None of these autopilots are currently available for the DA40, but fortunately the KAP 140 is not too bad. There are a lot of KAP 140s out there is Cessnas and Diamonds, some with G1000 avionics and some without, so some day we might get a high quality, digital, attitude-based replacement. The one nice thing about the rate-based KAP 140 is that if you loose the attitude indicator in the clouds, the autopilot and all of it's functions remain intact.
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