Chelton’s AP-3C is a full-featured flight control system at a bargain price.

by Larry Anglisano

Compared to navigators and displays, autopilot technology doesn’t advance rapidly. Not every airplane has flight control and the market is intolerant of the cost of full-system autopilot replacement. Realizing that many owners won’t drop 40 grand into an autopilot upgrade, autopilot veteran S-TEC has dominated the small- to mid-size airplane autopilot market with their turn-coordinator-driven, rate-based systems. They’ve certainly snatched a lot of business away from Bendix/King with these well-regarded autopilots.

But buyers have been waiting for an S-TEC competitor for years, hopefully one that might offer an affordable, attitude-based autopilot at rate-based pricing: the Chelton AP-3C system. It has created a bit of a buzz in the autopilot…