Stark Avionics

Just had a 530 put in my Cherokee by Stark Avionics in Columbus, GA. John Stark was not only friendly, but amazing to work with. Set a fair quote, and stuck to it to the cent. Attention to detail was excellent, and workmanship outstanding. No affiliation, other than a thrilled customer happy to clue others into a great shop!

http://www.starkavionics.com

Opposite experience

I had a terrible experience. Lost avionics and poor customer support. Plus his policy of not taking credit card put me at a position where I couldn't even dispute any charges.

I would on the other hand highly recommend vendors that advertise and support this forum.

Having dealt with both, I will stick with Steinair. Only positive experiences with Steinair which I cannot say for Stark. Plus Steinair supports the RV and EAB community.

Only have one datapoint, but the purchase of a Stratus ESG transponder from John Stark was quick and smooth at a very competitive price.

Not recommended

I had a great experience 10 years ago. I recommended them to a friend 3 years ago to have some upgrades to his aircraft. After many delays and excuses he took delivery and flew home. On the way back he had a dual radio failure. Eventually traced it to poorly crimped wires. There was also an intermittent autopilot glitch. This glitch would happen unexpectedly causing the plane to roll or pitch up or down requiring the pilot to disengage. I finally traced the problem and fixed it. The new autopilot servos were wired using the shield braid as a power wire! This obviously caused the signal wires to receive induced currents causing interference and thus the autopilot excursions. Too lazy to run the extra wires I guess. Stark said it was because they were not familiar enough with the system. Well then I guess they should have declined to install or call Garmin to ask questions instead of putting people at risk.

Also had another friend who used Stark. Because of a disgruntled employee he had received a harness with deliberate mistakes in it. To Stark's credit, he fired the employee and worked with my friend to resolve the issue on the phone.

I chose SteinAir when I did my new avionics upgrade last year and had a fantastic experience. I did my own wiring but the support and wiring diagram they provided were top notch. Highly recommend them!

Pro Stark

When building my last -8, John provided great service and price for both equipment and accessories.....no issues there. 10 years later, I went to Stark for an pretty significant upgrade for my Baron and once again.....great advice, great service and great pricing...... John is a no nonsense...straight to the point businessman. I believe him to be honest and very knowledgeable.

Used Stark 15 years ago. Had the best pricing, did very nice work on my wiring harnesses. No complaints. John was straightforward to deal with.

I had issues with one of the other popular vendors here and wasn't satisfied with what they did after their mess ups.

In business, you often only get one chance to get it right or make it right if you screw up. All vendors would do well to remember that.

When I was looking to purchase a Garmin GTN650 last year I called up all of the normal vendors. Stark wasted no time and gave me the best price (with free shipping) which was $500 below all others. Check went in the mail on Monday, GTN-650 arrived Friday. I couldn't of ask for an easier transaction.

Hi, I used Stark Avionics for my recent Garmin EFIS and ADS-B upgrade.
While you do have to pay with a check his prices are pretty **** amazing. I also had John make up my wiring harnesses.

He did run in to some delays on other projects and asked if I could wait a couple of extra weeks to get the harness. As you know in any upgrade project like this there is usually plenty to do. Especially since he had already shipped the boxes to me. For me that delay was no big deal and he kept me updated through emails as to what was going on.

While I built my airplane, I did not build the first panel. For this project even though the harness was made by John, I still had some learning curves to get past. When my local smart friends could not help, John Starks always got back to my email within a day or so.

I did have a couple of problems with the harness. But it was a labeling issue. He had marked the mic wires as the headphone wires and vice versa. Of course I only found the problem after I soldered up the headset jacks. Reversing the pins solved the problem. Also the GTN625 cooling fan would not work. The fan ground pin was in the wrong hole.
While some would say it should all be perfect. There is no such thing as perfect. It was close though and wiring issues are usually pretty straightforward.

Lesson learned is that no matter who makes up the harness, if I ever do another project like this, I will check every pin against the manufacturer?s wiring diagrams while sitting at a work bench. That would have caught those little issues that I had. It would have saved me some time from laying under the panel too. Experience is a wonderful thing.

My airplane building mentor buddy has built 4 airplanes and redone the panels on several other aircraft. He told me that issues like this usually come up in any wiring project. Starks did not avoid the issue and did apologize. Stuff happens and life moves on.

I would definitely recommend Starks to anyone.

Starke Avionics has done avionics work on my Archer on several occasions through the years, including installing my Garmin IFR enroute-approved GPS avionics when the Loran system was shut down. He was always very easy to work with, honest, and his prices were certainly competitive. My biggest reason for choosing Starke initially was the recommendation of local charter pilots who said they chose Starke 'because they didn't have to go back' - Right the first time, which has always been my experience, too.

Another Pro Stark

Originally purchased all my Garmin radios from John at a substantial discount and recently a Stratus transponder for ADSB compliance, again at a substantial discount.

Quick service, reasonable price and help available when you need it.

What more could you ask for?

Highly recommended.

IF what you're looking for is simply to buy boxes (and harnesses) at the lowest possible price, Stark is a good option. In the past I've purchased from him and was satisfied.

There are other vendors though that focus on customer service and also give back to the RV community. SteinAir is one of those. They will spend tremendous amounts of time to make sure you get the solution you want and then work with you later as needed to make sure it all works. Even if you change your mind, they will work with you to swap to a different widget! Finally, SteinAir is a major sponsor of things like the RV Social and other RV events that many of us enjoy. I am fortunate that I wasn't involved in the Chelton fiasco several years ago but did know some that were. After witnessing how customers from different avionics shops were treated, I can tell you that SteinAir's customers came out far better than others. As I said, I wasn't involved but that made me a permanent customer!

I had John of STARK AVIONICS do a complete panel upgrade on my RV7 earlier this year (dual Dynon Skyview HDX, ADSB in/out, Avidyne IFD440, SV knob Panel, & SV AP Panel). After the usual and expected delays, I get the call that the aircraft is ready, so I show up the next day and wait 4-5 hrs while work is finished. I do a thorough preflight (AP, trim movement and position, etc) and taxi out for my first test flight. Run up completed, and checklists accomplished I taxi onto the runway and begin my takeoff roll. At liftoff I notice a full nose up, out of trim condition. I activate the trim switch to try and correct the situation, but the trim does not respond. I call the tower, and ask for and get clearance for an immediate landing. After landing, I taxi back to STARK AVIONICS and report the problem. My thought at this point, is that maybe the trim is wired backwards. It's now late in the day, and I decide to rent a car and drive back home ( 5 1/2 hrs). The next day John says he believes that they have solved the problem, and I can come take delivery of the aircraft. I find a friend to fly me back. Once again the test flight ends with the same results. It's now late in the day, so I check in to a local hotel and spend the night. The next day after another failed test flight, we decide to check the trim operation with the engine running, where we found the trim function to be intermittent with the engine running. After consulting with Dynon it is suspected that I have a bad SV AP Panel, so John wires the trim to bypasses the SV AP Panel. And I fly the aircraft home to await the arrival of a new/repaired Panel.
With the new panel installed I accomplish a ground trim check with the engine running, and get the same results as before-intermittent trim response. I once again bypass the trim to the SV AP Panel, and give JESSE SAINT, of SAINT AVIATION a call. Jesse was able to diagnose this problem almost immediately. The problem turned out to be that during the install, Stark failed to remove the trim relay that was installed in the aircraft. As explained to me my Jesse, the SV AP Panel has its own trim relay within, and cannot/ will not work when two are installed. I noticed this warning in the install manual, which Jesse seemed to be very knowledgeable of:

If two SV-AP-PANELs are installed, connect only one SV-AP-PANEL to control trim motors. Do not connect the second SV-AP-PANEL’s D15M connector in parallel with the first SV-AP-PANEL’s D15M connector – doing so could cause unexpected behaviour and/or damage to the units and the trim motors.

Jesse's knowledge of this system amazes me. What surprised me was that even Dynon failed to question this during the calls from Stark during the initial troubleshooting. I cannot say enough about Jesse"s knowledge and professionalism. He is simply AMAZING! I would highly recommend him to anyone who ask.
Post note:
I just had Jesse and staff complete my first Condition Inspection since purchasing N900EC, where we found and corrected at least 3 other problems with this initial install by Stark Avionics:
1) Placement of dual ADAHRS-cable to pilots shoulder harness rubbing against the units causing a mismatch in attitude
Solution: relocated to center of tailcone to avoid interference
2)dual temperature probes installed on bottom of fuselage in exhaust stream resulting in inaccurate temperature readings.
Solution: relocated to either side of fuselage under Horizontal Stab
3) failed to remove unneeded trim position indicator which caused inaccurate readings
Solution: removed unneeded trim position indicator. Trim motor relays trim position.

Once again Jesse's systems knowledge is amazing! If you have a Vans RV, and need maintenance/Avionics work Jesse is your man!