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Your article about the Lightspeed PFX ANR headset in the August 2014 issue of Aviation Consumer could not have arrived at a more opportune time and was spot on in its evaluation.

Protecting your dog’s hearing in the high-noise environment of the cockpit is important. Mutt Muffs will help if they will stay on your dog’s head.

As with most things the government requires us to spend money on, many pilots that I talk with aren’t thrilled with the idea of force-fed ADS-B upgrades. Buying a non-compliant, $800 portable ADS-B receiver to get free weather is one thing. Investing thousands on a major installation is another. As we explain in the ADS-B equipment article on page 4, a full-up ADS-B-compliant upgrade, including a WAAS GPS navigator, could easily top 10 grand. If you’re lucky, you might get by with a $2000 investment, give or take, for a basic ADS-B output transponder. That’s a best-case scenario.

In the world of internal combustion engines, technology has declared war on octane. Thanks to sophisticated engine control units and knock detection, ever fewer modern cars require high-octane fuel. Aircraft engines, naturally, have been left behind, stranded on their own little island of octane neediness. And so the perverse problem of finding a replacement for leaded 100-octane avgas.

Less we’ll known in aviation circles, Austrian-based AKG Acoustics is respected in the studio and stage performance market with products endorsed by top performers. This includes Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart and Stevie Wonder, to name a few. Parent company Harman nearly owns the automotive OEM audio market. Its products are standard in BMW, Mercedes, Land Rover and Toyota.

We’re generally not impressed by geeky personal gadgets, and the Pebble wearable technology is no exception. Moreover, we’re trying to reduce our inventory of distracting portable electronics for the cockpit. That’s why it was easy to shrug off the recently introduced interface between the Hilton WingX Pro7 navigation app and the Pebble Smartwatch. But valued readers rely on us to give this stuff a try before they buy, so we did. What’s one more USB charging cable in a drawer full of a hundred of them, anyway?

We’ve watched the evolution of the Diamond DA40 series with interest. Our first reaction to what would become the Diamond Star was to be less than impressed. We thought the canopy was a marketing ploy that would make emergency egress difficult, and the cabin looked small and uncomfortable.

You’ve probably heard about the ARC’s (Aviation Rule Making Committee) proposal to the FAA that could relax the stringent certification process for small aircraft. I think we can all agree that it’s time to change the certification standards that exist in FAR 23 regulations, particularly when it comes to avionics. This was obvious as I looked at two new integrated avionics suites that were introduced at the annual Sun ‘n Fun show this past April.

As an emergency physician with a background in epidemiology and public health, I would like to thank Rick Durden and Aviation Consumer for the article on Safety Refurbs in the March 2014 issue. Although it was very we’ll done and quite helpful, I’d like to add two caveats.

It’s easy to confuse the Max-Viz enhanced vision system (EVS)with popular synthetic vision systems (SVS). These include Garmin’s proprietary SVT and Aspen’s ESV synthetic vision software. While synthetic vision is just that—a GPS-based synthetic depiction of terrain, obstacle and landscape features—the Max-Viz product from Oregon-based Astronics is a live moving image of the outside environment.

Talk about an impulse purchase. When we spotted the Vaavud digital wind meter for smartphones in the Sporty’s catalog, the marketing photos made it easy to justify dropping $49.95 plus shipping on the thing. Turns out it didn’t provide the level of utility we anticipated, at least for our flying missions.

Although the design is more than four decades old, the Cessna 177 Cardinal—with its racy sloped windshield, wide doors and strutless wings—looks more modern than the newest Skyhawks coming out of Cessna’s Independence, Kansas, plant. Yet, sadly, the Cardinal is a poster child for why innovation and audacity in general aviation development has often met dismal results in the market. Despite high expectations for a design that would usher in new thinking in light aircraft, the Cardinal had a rocky start and was gone from Cessna’s inventory a decade after it emerged.