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#1
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Pirep on eFlyBook
I purchased an eFlyBook from MyAirplanes.com a week after Oshkosh this year,
and initially was very happy with the unit. There were some software glitches and upgrades needed, but the overall quality of the screen and convenience were outstanding. However, on my first use during a 1000 mile xc, the screen had some dark lines on it that stayed even when the unit was turned off. This progressed to a permanent black screen, regardless of the on/off status. I spoke with Dennis at MyAirplanes.com, and sent the unit back to them as he instructed. After around a week I called him back, and he said the unit was shipped to me. Another week went by, and another call said that Irex (the manufacturer of the units) was not supporting the repair or replacement of the screens, and wanted 260 euro to repair. After this, no more calls or emails from MyAirplane.com. No one answers the phone, and no response to emails sent to Irex. Although the technology has promise, these people were not set up for customer service, which has been non-existent (both Irex and MyAirplane.com) In short, they have my broken unit, and I am out $1200. My only recourse has been to try to get the money back through my credit card company. If you're considering the purchase of one of these be careful! |
#2
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Pirep on eFlyBook
"Viperdoc" wrote in message ... I purchased an eFlyBook from MyAirplanes.com a week after Oshkosh this year, and initially was very happy with the unit. There were some software glitches and upgrades needed, but the overall quality of the screen and convenience were outstanding. However, on my first use during a 1000 mile xc, the screen had some dark lines on it that stayed even when the unit was turned off. This progressed to a permanent black screen, regardless of the on/off status. I spoke with Dennis at MyAirplanes.com, and sent the unit back to them as he instructed. After around a week I called him back, and he said the unit was shipped to me. Another week went by, and another call said that Irex (the manufacturer of the units) was not supporting the repair or replacement of the screens, and wanted 260 euro to repair. After this, no more calls or emails from MyAirplane.com. No one answers the phone, and no response to emails sent to Irex. Although the technology has promise, these people were not set up for customer service, which has been non-existent (both Irex and MyAirplane.com) In short, they have my broken unit, and I am out $1200. My only recourse has been to try to get the money back through my credit card company. If you're considering the purchase of one of these be careful! Have you tried contacting ARINC? |
#3
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Pirep on eFlyBook
Viperdoc wrote:
I purchased an eFlyBook from MyAirplanes.com a week after Oshkosh this year, and initially was very happy with the unit. There were some software glitches and upgrades needed, but the overall quality of the screen and convenience were outstanding. However, on my first use during a 1000 mile xc, the screen had some dark lines on it that stayed even when the unit was turned off. This progressed to a permanent black screen, regardless of the on/off status. I spoke with Dennis at MyAirplanes.com, and sent the unit back to them as he instructed. After around a week I called him back, and he said the unit was shipped to me. Another week went by, and another call said that Irex (the manufacturer of the units) was not supporting the repair or replacement of the screens, and wanted 260 euro to repair. After this, no more calls or emails from MyAirplane.com. No one answers the phone, and no response to emails sent to Irex. Although the technology has promise, these people were not set up for customer service, which has been non-existent (both Irex and MyAirplane.com) In short, they have my broken unit, and I am out $1200. My only recourse has been to try to get the money back through my credit card company. If you're considering the purchase of one of these be careful! I don't own the eFlybook, but I have used the PocketEFB software from myairplane.com, and if I am correct the eFlybook uses the same software. This software had some problems running on the Dell AXIM. The screen would sometimes go blank, or would leave dark lines which won't go away until I did a hard reset. Also, the advertised feature of 'nightcharts' never worked for me. I spoke to Dennis about it and he said it could be due to low memory on my AXIM. However, this is the only running program on the AXIM, so I suspect that is not the correct cause. My impression so far is that it is an overall good product, but still has some ways to go. |
#4
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Pirep on eFlyBook
Ouch... sorry to hear of your problems with the eFlyBook and I thank you for
the warning. Customer service seems to be nonexistent at many companies. During the past 4 weeks I've all but lost my mind waiting on hold, getting disconnected, emailing, and recalling while trying to get answers from JPI, Airtex Interiors, Shaden, Wells Fargo Mutual Funds. Email, voice mail, and the hold button have become convenient excuses for companies to simply ignore their customers. To top it all off yesterday DirecTV was supposed to install an upgrade package at my house but they had the wrong work order and refused to install what I'd actually ordered... after 4 phone calls totally over 40 minutes of my time he'll come back on the 23rd of October. Thanks a freaking lot. Anyway, I digress.... A friend of mine tried the eFlyBook system on a trial basis and wasn't satisfied with the cost/feature/value of the set up. He ultimately sent it back. He also liked the concept. Not to hi-jack your thread but to issue a pirep on another infight mapping product that I will no longer recommend is the FlightPrep/tablet/MS combination. The onscreen sectionals and low alt enroute charts are just too clunky to navigate and view. The stability of the system is marginal at best. I've not had many problems at altitudes as high as 11k, but it often crashes when switching between screens or views. When it works, it works great... when it doesn't... it is cumbersome and clunky. The XM weather seems to work fine but add GPS, a moving map sectional or low enroute chart or terminal procedure with multiple views and Windoze throws up it's hands and begs for mercy. I tried to talk to a company representative at OSH about the crashes and once he knew that I already owned the product he totally ignored me. It was not a very comforting feeling to watch him turn his attention away from a current customer and towards a potential victim. I was not impressed and will not soon forget it. Again, I'm sorry for your problems with the eFlybook and I thank you for the pirep. Jim |
#5
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Pirep on eFlyBook
Jim Burns wrote:
Customer service seems to be nonexistent at many companies. You noticed that, too? Perhaps the planets are all aligned in that certain special way, or perhaps these companies have finally decided to callously abandon customer service altogether, but either way I have had my fill of poor customer service these past few months as well. -- Peter |
#6
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Pirep on eFlyBook
"Peter R." wrote in message ... Jim Burns wrote: Customer service seems to be nonexistent at many companies. You noticed that, too? Perhaps the planets are all aligned in that certain special way, or perhaps these companies have finally decided to callously abandon customer service altogether, but either way I have had my fill of poor customer service these past few months as well. When was the last time you heard of someone out of CS being made CEO, as opposed to someone from Sales, Marketing, or Accounting? |
#7
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Pirep on eFlyBook
Matt Barrow wrote:
When was the last time you heard of someone out of CS being made CEO, as opposed to someone from Sales, Marketing, or Accounting? Accounting and operations are the two common CEO farms, from what I have seen in fifteen years of consulting at these companies. -- Peter |
#8
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Pirep on eFlyBook
Well, I may not have been able to garner enough sales of my product to
keep it going (just shut down my flight planning software business selling AirPlan), but my customers always told me that I gave good customer service. I guess that it was because I always responded to their questions and actually wanted to fix their problems (and make my product better). Unfortunately the aviation market is small and tough to penetrate, especially if you are working part time on a shoestring budget like I was. I wasn't willing to quit my day job and invest a lot of my own money on marketing without some indication that there was a real return to be had, and that may have been the main reason why I wasn't able to succeed. I know Dennis Megarry and I suspect that he will try to fix this problem. I don't know what the ultimate cause of the problem is, but if I had spent $1200 on a unit and it puked, I wouldn't give up on getting it fixed. You should try pinging ARINC and see what they say if Dennis doesn't respond. Dean Wilkinson |
#9
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Pirep on eFlyBook
wrote:
I know Dennis Megarry and I suspect that he will try to fix this problem. He used to post here regularly, but that was a few years ago now. -- Peter |
#10
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Pirep on eFlyBook
Rant on and just hit delete now, because some of what is posted below is
so stupid it makes me ashamed that I deal with companies like this.... but if you want to feel assured that you're not the only one... read on. Yesterday I called JPI to ask which crimper or die number they now recommend to crimp the terminal ends onto their wiring harness leads. The AMP # in the install manual is no longer available. I've got to make at least 52 crimps and I'm not against buying a specific die or crimper if it will help me do a better job. I specifically called their tech department, not sales. I got put on hold so I punched the timer.... 18 minutes on hold.... finally the guy answers. "I don't know, let me look that up" hold... punch the timer again.... 8 minutes.... "I don't know, I can't find it... I THINK the wires are EITHER 22 or 24 gauge, something like that." So I hung up. I couldn't handle being put on hold again only to get another response like that. I don't know. I think. Either. Something like that. From a company technician. 26 minutes of holding and less than 2 minutes of conversation without an answer. I fought with Wells Fargo Mutual Funds for 5 weeks trying to convince them that I was me after internet access to my account was dropped. They said I didn't have my SSN attached to my accounts. I said everything worked last week, why not now? They insisted that they didn't have my SSN. I asked them who they sent the 1099's to last year... first they said I didn't get any. I asked them if they wanted me to fax them the copy I was looking at.... then they said well, we sent them to you... I asked them who's SSN where the 1099's made out to... they said me.... I asked them what SSN was on the account then... they read me my #.... I told them that was MY SSN... they said sorry, your name doesn't match. They left out an initial. They said it could be two different people. I asked with the same SS#? married to the same woman on a joint tenant account? living at the same address? Ge tting 1099's and paying taxes for each other?! They said YEP. Here's your sign. I told them I was glad that their phone conversations were recorded for customer satisfaction and that they need to replay mine daily. They had me convinced that I had lost my mind. One day last month our DTN satellite news service suddenly dropped the energy futures market quotes. So I called them. "Because our fees from the Chicago and New York Exchanges have gone up, we've had to limit your subscription and several items have been deleted but can be re-added at additional cost." Ok, I'm not paying any more money to get what I used to have, what do I have to do to drop the service? "Let me transfer you to our Retainment Team" Hold.... 10 minutes later a salesman asks me which service upgrade I'd like to purchase! I explain the whole scenario and he puts me on hold.... another 5 minutes and I get the 1st person again... I asked her if she leased or owned her car... lease... I asked if I was her car company and came to her house one day and told her that the cost of tires had gone up, so now I'm taking one back or she could upgrade to a new lease package and have her tire back what would she think?.... she got my point.... a week later a new system showed up on UPS and everything works like it did prior to the interruption. BP off the chart all for nothing. Over 14 days ago I requested a quote from Airtex for some interior pieces. First phone call and the owner of the company insists that my rear baggage compartment doesn't have any interior pieces, it's all bare aluminum panels. I told him that of the dozen or so C model Aztecs that I've seen, all of them, including mine had factory installed padded vinyl interior panels. I'll send pictures. Pictures sent with a specific list of requirements. No response yet... I've left messages and voice mails... "I'll put your number on his desk..." no return phone calls, no reply to my email. Here's your sign... it says "We don't want your business" Jim |
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