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Way back when RNAV for light aircraft was the Bendix/King KNS80 rho-theta system, keeping current charts was easy. For 20 bucks and a stop at the local FBO, you replaced all your data: One sectional, the local approaches, an A/FD and an enroute chart or two. If you were a serious traveler, price, weight and hassle escalated if you paid a premium to get updates mailed to you—in big packs or neat little envelopes—so you always had the latest charts. Those quaint days are gone forever, done in by the “convenience” of modern digital navigation where all your data lives on cards that you plug into your navigators.

While Alaska’s official bird is a pretty two-tone number called the Willow Ptarmigan, the state bird that works for a living is the Piper Super Cub. For reasons related to perfect timing, a marriage of the right powerplant to a robust airframe and sheer, stubborn staying power, the Super Cub has earned what seems to be a permanent home in bush community. Other aircraft can arguably outdo the Cub in payload capability, speed and cabin space, but the Super Cub simply holds its own in an economic combination of all three that’s hard to beat. And we’re told there’s more than one Super Cub beating around the bush with only one original part: the aircraft data plate.

Like Carl Sandburgs fog, progress sneaks up on you on little cat feet and before you know it, you cant see a damn thing. Thats the reaction I had when I immersed myself in the G1000 training programs were reporting on in this issue. What I was not seeing is how expensive it can be to be checked out on these things. Strike that; check out is the wrong word. You have to be trained.I can remember the first time I was shown a Bendix/King KNS80. Whoaa…rho-theta navigation? How cool was that? Not that much, really. It was hardly revolutionary technology, but the important thing was that if it was in an airplane you intended to fly, it took about 15 minutes of instruction to understand it and another 15 minutes of practice to master it. In other words, it didnt have much impact on the cost of checking out in a new airplane.

Cheap Plastic Indeed”Aftermarket Saves Big”? (June 2011 Aviation Consumer) Not if you buy from Plane Plastics! Their stuff takes an enormous amount of trimming and fitting. At best, it ends up looking second rate and some cannot be made to fit at all.I can show you pictures of stuff I ordered by model and serial number of the aircraft. The left instrument panel cover was especially bad. I was terribly disappointed by the whole…

We have tested Concorde and Gill aircraft batteries on multiple occasions looking for the longest battery life and best value. In our view, and in our opinions expressed in our reader polls, Concordes products are a better bet. Our gold standard has been the FAA capacity test as the core of that test methodology since it takes each batterys amp-hour rating into consideration during the test, so we are testing apples-to-apples, so to speak. Per FAR 23.1353(h), we look for 80-percent capacity at the one-hour discharge rate. This simulates the stress of an alternator-out situation where battery power alone keeps the essential electronics bus running for a minimum of 30 minutes. There is no established standard for the number of cycles a battery must undergo, and we were only checking to see if the battery passed or failed each test.

We pilots routinely kill ourselves. Not only is this a bummer for the people intimately involved in the wreck, its also bad for business. Cirrus Aircraft defined itself as a trend-setter in combatting this with certified aircraft when the first SR20s rolled off the line with whole-airframe parachutes in 1999. Better than just surviving a catastrophe at the expense of the airplane, however, would be recovering back to controlled flight. Cirrus again led the charge in light GA with “LVL” button as part of the Garmin Perspective avionics suite (a modified G1000) in 2008. More sophisticated than a simple rip-cord solution, the LVL (blue) button leverages the tumble-proof digital “gyros” to pitch and/or roll the aircraft back to level flight without overstressing anything. Avidyne came up with a similar feature called “Straight and Level” in its DFC 90/100 autopilots.

One of our jobs at Aviation Consumer-really the most important one-is to review products and make recommendations for our readers. In a nutshell, thats why we exist. The process to arrive at these recommendations is straightforward, if not always simple. We gather facts, examine and try the products, then make our recommendations based on disclosed fact.

Since Shells W100 Plus is probably the most logical alternative to the additives that you and Mike Busch praise from the same script in the additives review in your April issue, it would have been interesting to hear your observations, research and/or opinions as to its relative value. Busch says nearly equal but don’t use both, without clear definition of why. I have been running W100 Plus in an 1100-hour engine with recent new cylinders. Not flying it often enough. I purchased Camguard since you both think it is great. Not cheap.

Like a kid with a treehouse, a hangar is the ideal for most any aircraft owner. Not only are you and your ride protected from the elements, but there’s also room to store the miscellany accompanying aircraft ownership. The barriers to hangar heaven have always been availability and price. The former is often too scarce and the latter too high-at least on the surface. Many owners put their names on the waiting lists for a hangar, but when it comes time to put down the $400/month or more, the $50/month tie-down doesnt look so bad. More than one owner responded to our recent AVweb.com survey that even when you factor in the wear and tear on paint and other exterior items like tires, the tie-down can be cheaper. A net of $4200/year buys a lot of maintenance.

When you tell a fellow pilot what kind of airplane you fly, the list of responses that will elicit more than casual, feigned interest is short. But the Aerostar is on it. It has a deserved rep for being blazingly fast with good range. And unlike most piston twins, it has enough power to actually climb on a single engine. But bring a VISA with high limits. The airplanes Lycomings are somewhat thirsty and although its hardly a maintenance hog, the Aerostar fleet is aging and getting expensive to maintain. But for owners who can afford it, the model is hard to beat for getting from A to B faster than anything that doesnt burn Jet A. The Aerostar is the product of famed aircraft designer Ted Smith, whose name is attached to such classics as the A-20 twin-engine bomber and the Twin and Jet Commander lines.

While your number one tools for navigating icing conditions are gray matter and a good mental map of the weather, deicing equipment opens up a world of options. Flights that would be preemptively cancelled can be attempted and situations that would be emergencies turn into calm requests for a new altitude. Deicing options are largely set by the airframe, with only a few models having certification for both boots and the TKS weeping wing. In November 2008, we picked TKS as the better choice. We still think so, and in our recent survey, most owners agree. While not without drawbacks, most pilots are happy with the system and accept its tradeoffs.

What whirring sound coming from the depths of your instrument panel is the sound of your checkbook being spared expensive repair bills. Dont hear the soothing hum of an avionics blower motor? You might think of installing one. Todays avionics live in a harsh environment where high-end temperature is the destructive enemy. Part of the TSO process includes temperature threshold testing. Garmins popular GNS430 navigator and G1000 GDU displays reveal a published high-end operating temperature of 55 degrees C. These units meet the TSO spec without external cooling, yet Garmins technical advice is that reducing the operating temperature by 15-20 degrees C doubles the mean time between failures (MTBF). And thats for new avionics that produce less heat than some old gear.