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Not 10 seconds after Wilbur cracked up the Flyer that cold December morning at Kitty Hawk, Orville must have asked, “whats this gonna cost me?” And weve been asking ever since, never more so than now as the future of 100LL hangs in the uncertain balance between readily available and extinction. As potential replacements loom hazily on the horizon-and frankly, there arent many of them-its fair to start asking what they might cost. Or to cynically turn the question on its head: Does anyone have the first clue?

I wouldnt be the slightest bit surprised if an archeologist rooting around the middens of some ancient society unearthed, along with pottery shards and crude tools, a Bendix 1200 magneto, with the part number intact. Magnetos are what industrial historians sometimes call “persistent technology.” Gee, ya think? In this issue, were reporting on the demise of the Bendix dual mag, a cursed thing which represents one of evolutionary blind alleys that often dog industrial development. Its not that it was really that awful, its just that the idea of two mags in the same housing struck some people as like putting a screen door in a submarine.

Despite all the blather about electronic charts and the paperless cockpit, dead-tree charts still rule. If that sounds depressingly old school, the good news is we have choices, even if its among only two basic publishers. Another piece of good news is we can put down one publishers chart and pick up the others without too much confusion. While there are qualitative differences between the two publishers, a major distinction is how they go about distributing updates.

New general aviation aircraft are as iconic as Cessnas 310. Whether because of its aggressive ramp presence, its supporting role in a television adventure series or its suitability for a wide range of missions, the 310 is what many non-pilots recall when piston twins come up in conversation. Its arguably the first “modern” light twin and certainly a classic. While the 310 is all of those things, its also a complicated machine, production of which ended almost 30 years ago. The tall landing gear might be thought of as delicate and its systems demanding, both to maintain and operate. But it still offers substantial transportation value, and the many different variants that were built as the model evolved means it shouldnt be hard to find the right one for your mission.

There’s no question that logging some time flying pixels on your desktop computer can help keep you sharp flying real instruments through real clouds. How much it helps depends on how sophisticated the simulation is and how you go about using it. So lets be crystal-clear that were talking about the bottom rung here: Whats the best choice for a simulator you can install at home to practice your procedures and scan in the half hour between cleaning up after dinner and the next episode of House? We should also set a few ground rules. You wont be able to log time for approaches flown without an instructor by your side, so we see no point in forking over big bucks for an FAA-approved system. You will want at least the basic flight controls, so expect to spend about $110 for something like CH Products Flight Sim Yoke. Helicopter controls might cost a bit more. We wouldnt bother with rudder pedals for airplanes. Plan on using your keyboard and mouse to control on-screen switches, knobs and buttons.

Its just a sad fact that a wear item could have a replacement price tag up to a third of the value of your aircraft. Thats the way it is with engines, yet most owners accept this and worry more about surviving the engine-change experience with a reliable motor that will last rather than finding the cheapest solution. But the best path to getting that reliable motor isn’t clear cut. Should you do a field overhaul or get an engine from the factory? Is it worth shipping the engine cross-country for that overhaul or is a local shop just fine? Does it matter who does the engine installation itself? Every few years, we ask our readership, and that of our sister publication AVweb.com, to weigh in with their real-world experiences on engine overhauls. The latest results are consistent with the past: Your best bet is a field overhaul from a shop with a solid track record for quality work and after-the-sale support.

I have been intrigued by the SMA Jet-A conversion since Ive known about it. It was interesting to actually hear about the result in your article and video in the February 2010 issue. Still, analyzing the $85,000 for conversion versus $25,000 for an overhauled Continental, its a tough sell. I can do three Continental overhauls for the price of the conversion. So, even at a lower cost per block hour to operate the SMA diesel, its hard for me to imagine someone recouping the $60,000 additional cost of the conversion during a reasonable period of ownership, assuming you do it at a normal O-470 TBO.

Compared to piston aviation fuels research, mushroom farming is a daylight operation. Thats not to say the fuel work is secretive, its just that it goes on more or less constantly, but nothing meaningful seems to come of it. At least you can have the mushrooms on your salad. Against this backdrop of apparent non-action comes yet another entrant into the 100LL replacement sweepstakes, this one called G100UL. This new fuel comes at the problem from far out in left field from a company known more for burning fuel than creating it: General Aviation Modifications, Inc., the Ada, Oklahoma, mod house that shook up the hidebound world of aircraft engine research with its radical ideas on lean-of-peak operation and an almost religious conviction that turbonormalized engines are better than turbocharged engines. With G100UL, GAMI is again running against the grain and, to a degree, challenging the accepted notion that before a new fuel can be widely tested, it has to be certified. But, says GAMIs George Braly, thats backwards. There’s no point in reducing entire forests to pulp to certify a fuel if refineries arent interested in or cant build the stuff profitably, thus GAMIs idea is to field its new developmental fuel to a select fleet under an STC while simultaneously pursuing regulatory approval. To a degree, that will test the economics, too, since production will have to rise to at least the pilot-plant level to supply a small fleet experiment.

In February 1996, the FAAs Technical Standard Order (TSO) C129 put IFR GPS navigation on the map. It was a complex installation with equipment that was quirky to program, but early adopters gained GPS-direct flight plans and GPS approaches-even though GPS was “supplementary navigation.” Todays IFR GPS installations are all about the augmented WAAS signal thats worthy of sole-means navigation. Theyre still a source of confusion and expense, but WAAS installations yield impressive automation and capability. Before you decide if WAAS is for you, you need to understand some behind-the-scenes facts and why you could be disadvantaged without WAAS GPS in your aircraft.

Because of aviations higher-than-normal dingbat factor, I don’t see many business ideas in the industry that make my head swoon. Most of them make my head hurt, frankly. Were covering two exceptions in this issue, the Next Dimension Aircraft Cirrus mod project and the basic idea of aircraft partnerships. In a way, the two are related.

Interesting reading about the latest from Garmin in your December 2009 issue. A question from those of us that fly open cockpit: Will the touchscreen work with gloves on? My iPhone wont. This could be another case where “improvements” take a whole class of user out of the market.

Its always interesting to contemplate general aviations boom-and-bust cycles. While exceptions certainly abound, it seems every other decade since the 1930s has included introduction of new aircraft or new technologies that further advance the state of the art. The 1970s were an upswing, avocado-green vinyl upholstery and Continentals Tiara engine notwithstanding. In addition to the iconic taper-wing Piper Cherokees, Cessnas original Citation and Beechs Model 200 Super King Air, the 70s also ushered in the Rockwell Commander 112/114 series of four-seat piston singles. For years, what was then called North American Rockwell had been trying to find the right mix of ramp appeal, performance and features to enter the general aviation market in a big way. Early attempts-the Lark and Darter, and efforts to revive the Meyers 200-didnt work out as the company hoped.