What makes one product better than another? Sometimes it just works better, sometimes the company standing behind it provides better customer service and sometimes a top product simply does more for less—which is how we define that elusive quality called the best value.

As professional shoppers and product testers, our job is to sweep the market in search of the general aviation products and services that you, as an aircraft owner, need to keep your airplane flying safely and economically. Once a year, in our Gear of the Year awards, we review the best products and services we’ve seen recently and on these three pages, we’re presenting our findings for 2005. …