Today is a fairly momentous day in avionics history, at least for me anyway. I received the news that Narco Avionics had closed its doors after 65 years in business. The news blindsided us at the shop. I am shocked but not surprised. For several years I had been wondering out loud how Narco could survive in an increasingly competetive market and now, a lackluster economy, without some seriously innovative new products. Narco always seemed to enjoy somewhat of a cult following among a loyal fan base but it apparently was not enough to carry them through the present time. I suspect that the service of existing equipment rather than sales of new equipment had largely been their mainstay of income in the recent past. With the peak of general aviation manufacturing about 30 years in the rear view mirror, the pool of repairable units has been dwindling and the market for new units based on older technology is not enough to keep the boat on top of the water. 

Over the years, my relationship with Narco has been somewhat of a love/hate nature. I say "hate" with tounge in cheek because "frustration" is a better word. Overall, I liked Narco and had a pretty good relationship with them. My first job ever as a green avionics tech was to replace a meter assembly in a Nav-122 which is an absolutely miserable job. The fact that I stayed in the business for almost 24 years is a testament to me being either tenacious or too dumb to take another gig - take your pick. Call it a baptism by fire. Almost every other job looked easy after that one. I would become well familiar with their line of radios. They made some really good radios and some - well, not so good ones. The Mark 12D was, in my opinion, a great design in a basic nav/com. Extremely reliable and relatively easy to work on, I didn't have to work on too many of them. I don't think it was a matter of market share - I think they just didn't break all that often. The Mark 12E Cessna, on the other hand, was a train wreck. I wouldn't take one as a gift. Rumor had it that even the Narco guys hated working on them. The ones we dealt with suffered from a lot of reliability issues. One unit went back to the factory six times - count 'em - SIX - before it was fixed. I think the box knew its own way to the factory after the third trip.

The AT-150 was a reliable transponder design and Narco did a wise thing by making the AT-50, 50A, 150, 155 and 165 all pin compatible. Upgrades were a snap. Someone was thinking. And speaking of transponders, you had to love the similarity of the AT-50A and the ARC RT-359A. Always wondered who copied who on that one. I worked on a lot of the Narco cavity-based transponders over the years. I could probably be in a coma and be able to fix one. I worked on my share of Com 11/Com 120 series units which usually okay to deal with but God help the poor fool who had to replace a crystal in a Nav-12. Even aligning a Spectrum nav was a chore. I have too many of those under my belt to even contemplate and eventually I said, "Enough is enough" and we quit working on them. I also started sending the Nav-122's out as well, never having fully recovered from that meter installation job I suppose. Then there was the VGTR-3A, the vacuum tube unicom radio that I had to work on occasionally and still wish I could get my hands on one just for old times' sake. I also repaired my share of elderly Mark 12's with a can of Tune-o-Wash (the usual fix for intermittent tube sockets and switches).Those were the days..  Nothing like that TWEEEEEE of the power supply and 5 amps just to make the thing receive. I also worked on oddballs like Mark 16's and Mark 24's, but fortunately not too many of them. They could be a real pain.

A few years ago, Narco had made the decision to suspend field repair of their equipment, requiring it to come into the factory if it needed service. Given that I make my living by repairing equipment, the thought of having radios that I could be fixing having to go to the factory instead did not sit well with me. I suspect it didn't sit well with a lot of dealers who had considerable investment in manuals, cables and parts inventory. That was probably the low point in our relationship with the company although eventually we attained "master dealer" status and were able once again to offer full support. I did not agree with the decision and was glad to see that they eventually abandoned it, though I suspect that it was a sore spot with dealers, at least for awhile. As incensed as we may have been, I think we knew that it wasn't wise to hit the lifeboats on supporting Narco equipment because there was an awful lot of it out there. Still is. For whatever frustrations we had from that time period, I have to say that Narco had a number of good points worth mentioning.

They had what I considered to be the best manuals in the business, very thorough with plenty of technical data along with easy-to-read prints. They also were among relatively few manufacturers who not only made their equipment here in the USA but offered technical support by knowledgeable people who actually worked on the equipment. That scenario used to be common but those types of support people are becoming an endangered species. One of my extreme pet peeves concerning technical support is that so often the person with whom I am speaking is quoting the manual to me. Kindness forbids me from telling the person, "Look, I can read; I have the manual; what I need from tech support is the tribal knowledge gained from actually working on a hundred problematic units!" Like I said, that level of support is a dying art these days and Narco was one of the last holdouts.

I also recall a number of occasions where Narco made a good effort to help me locate parts and made the process of factory repair pretty easy. Unfortunately, there were occasions when the radio came back not quite right but they were willing to make it right with a minimum of fuss. Just about everyone I talked to was pleasant and professional. Some were a little more personable than others but for the most part, I enjoyed a good relationship with them. I am sorry not to have had the opportunity to thank each of them because like I said, I never really expected this day to come. They manufactured their equipment here in the USA and the loss of another US manufacturer is something I hate to see.

Whatever finally sunk Narco, I'm rather sorry to see them go. We in avionics owe a lot to their innovation in the early days and they were a success story for many years. Unfortunately, I think that the innovation stopped awhile ago and they were outgunned by newer, more capable designs. The bulk of their equipment was fairly dated in comparison to the intensive competition from Garmin. With only so many airplanes out there and Garmin grabbing a lot of the market share, maybe today was somewhat inevitable. I still wish it were not so.

Jim K.