Blue Mountain

J

jsbougher

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Jul 9, 2008
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LafBizGuy
I still remember the first time I saw their product at Oshkosh many years ago. I couldn't believe it. Looks like it can come full circle. From their website ...
"Well, it's been fun. We developed a whole new class of machine, started an industry, dominated it, and are now leaving it. BMA will be ceasing production and spinning down. The best way to contact us is via email: support@bluemountainavionics.com. Please don't call, since the office is not staffed on a scheduled basis. We'll still be around to service, support and assist as time permits, homebuilders helping other homebuilders, but BMA is essentially closed. This website is paid up and will be around for a few years at least, and there is some hope (and a fond desire) that we may return to full production when the economy recovers. Database updates are still be available on this site, and service, maintenance and repairs are still available for all BMA products. We are actively seeking someone to buy the code and continue development. If your interested, please email."
 
Too bad. They really were one of the first ones to get the whole 'glass panel for experimentals' ball rolling. I had the opportunity to visit their shop way back in 2002 or 2003. My dad and I were about to start building an RV-7A and we were visiting family in Alabama. There is a local RV builder group there and we asked if we could come kick the tires on their RV's (even though we were about to build, we had never actually flown in an RV before ;)). The group said "Sure, come on over. We're flying to Ft. Payne for breakfast!" We rode with them to Ft. Payne and then they got the idea to fly up to the Blue Mountain shop for the heck of it. About an hour or so later, we were in their shop.

At the time, they were doing some very cutting edge type of stuff. I think what has killed them is the inability to get a 'stable' system out on the market before trying to out-do themselves with a new product. They had some nice stuff, but we never serioiusly considered it in our plane(s) because it is just too buggy.

Too bad. Hopefully they'll be back again in the future. Competition is always good in a marketplace - especially high-dollar markets.
 
Chris - I thought you were going with blue mountain stuff in the -10?
 
Blue Mountain were the guys that really started the movement but I don't know that they ever really understood the market. Dynon beat the heck out of them on price and persoaanlly I think Dynon, AFS and others beat them on product.

Usually being the first horse out of the gate isn't the one that wins the race.
 
The synthetic vision on the BMA stuff was the best in the industry, the detail & brightness was incredible. I had an RV-9a with serial #4 EFIS 1 w/ auto pilot. When I finally got it debugged it was a pretty good unit, but quirky at times. If you liked tinkering with computers BMA was a great system.
 
Geico266 said:
The synthetic vision on the BMA stuff was the best in the industry, the detail & brightness was incredible. I had an RV-9a with serial #4 EFIS 1 w/ auto pilot. When I finally got it debugged it was a pretty good unit, but quirky at times. If you liked tinkering with computers BMA was a great system.
Click to expand...

At least with BMA, if you got the 'blue screen of death', you could talk to the developers to get a hack to fix it. Notsomuch with pricey Avidyne stuff. ;)
 
CJones said:
At least with BMA, if you got the 'blue screen of death', you could talk to the developers to get a hack to fix it. Notsomuch with pricey Avidyne stuff. ;)
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That's because Avidyne has only 100% FAA Certified Bugs! :rolleyes:
 
GigG601XL said:
Blue Mountain were the guys that really started the movement but I don't know that they ever really understood the market. Dynon beat the heck out of them on price and persoaanlly I think Dynon, AFS and others beat them on product.

Usually being the first horse out of the gate isn't the one that wins the race.
Click to expand...

I met Greg Richter 15 years ago or so when he was running the early versions of his system on a laptop PC. One of our EAA chapter members used to fly him around so Greg could observe system performance and upgrade his code while in flight.

Over the long term, BMA suffered because they never really picked a point in space and time and said "this is the product we're offering". Instead, they were forever in a development cycle - working on the next great thing before the last great thing was truly debugged and ready for prime time.

That led to unreliable systems, production delays, etc. All of which disappointed customers and hurt future sales.

And then at some point, the money apparently ran out.

Dynon, on the other hand, developed a single relatively simple product, got it into production, and sold it at a great price point. When there were problems (there were), Dynon was forthcoming and fixed the problems on-schedule. Later, Dynon went into product extension mode and added a better display, an engine monitor, etc., but they didn't have to reinvent the entire wheel for each succeeding product.
 
I have a friend with an RV-8 that put in a BM and had nothing but issues with it for 3 years. He finally figured it out with no help from them, now they go under.
No real loss as far as I can see.
 
kyleb said:
Over the long term, BMA suffered because they never really picked a point in space and time and said "this is the product we're offering". Instead, they were forever in a development cycle - working on the next great thing before the last great thing was truly debugged and ready for prime time.

That led to unreliable systems, production delays, etc. All of which disappointed customers and hurt future sales.
Click to expand...

I think that is pretty much where I got the feeling that they didn't really know their customer base. They were treating the platform like a computer maker would treat their high end game machine. Always coming out with a new model or a new gadget. While those of us around airplanes are used to a piece of equipment coming out and being top of the line for years if not decades.
 
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