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In your “WSIs New Datalink: Lots of Display Choices” in the December 2007 issue, you said, “As datalink technology has matured, we find that pilots are still interested in a select core group of weather products which include NEXRAD, winds aloft, METARS, TAFs and perhaps lightning. While the other products might be gravy, most owners can do without them, saving $20 per month.” Winds aloft is not part of the basic product of either WxWorx or WSI. If you want the winds aloft product, then you have to spend the extra $20 per month.

These were your grandfathers airplanes. After World War II, Piper, Aeronca, Taylorcraft, Luscombe and ERCO (Engineering and Research Corp., maker of the Ercoupe)-cranked out thousands of easy-to-fly two-seaters to meet temporary post-war demand. Today, you can buy one of these LSA-qualified antique airplanes for around $25,000. Spend more, get more; less and look for rust, worn engines and old fabric. Many old airplanes qualify for LSA provided theyre two-seaters or smaller with a max gross weight of 1320 pounds. Well review five popular models: Pipers J-3, the Aeronca 7AC, Taylorcraft BC-12D, Luscombe 8A and the Ercoupe 415C, the only tri-geared airplane in the lineup.

Shopping for an altitude encoder is about as exciting as watching paint dry. But in modern avionics, they play a key role in the automation and, the sad truth is, they break and need to be replaced. So when your shop asks which one to buy, you’ll want to have an answer. Usually, unless ATC barks about a faulty Mode C trace, most owners wont give the pressure-altitude encoding system a second thought. But if yours acts up in the middle of a flight through Class B airspace, youre not going to be very popular. Also, nav management and autopilot systems depend on these little gadgets. Given the relatively low cost of new encoders, its silly to not consider replacing one thats seen many years of service. In this article, we’ll cover the various options for inputting pressure altitude to your avionics, offer advice on replacing tired encoders and we’ll suggest ways to ensure reliable, accurate Mode C operation.

The emerging Light Sport Aircraft market has ignited new interest in airplanes at the $100,000 price point and below. Most of these airplanes are composites, but buyers not interested in spending that much are looking hard at older LSA-compliant taildraggers-Cubs and Champs, for instance. That means renewed interest in a technology as old as aviation itself-fabric covering.

Although anyone who learned to fly during the 1970s suffered the 90 dB din of an unmuffled cabin, thats old school now. These days, we all wear headsets and panels have audio systems or at least intercoms, which make the endeavor more civilized. We see ever more airplanes that have integrated audio panels with built-in intercoms. Even the basic current production audio switching panels have on-board voice-activated stereo intercoms, which place all of the audio controls in a single console. This saves room on the panel and streamlines installation.

Any owner whos recently suffered the experience can tell you that sending an airplane to the paint shop is a six-week, $12,000 crap shoot. Thats if youre lucky and the shop is on its game. Dont be surprised if the airplane is down for three months and you get it back only after paying an invoice 25 percent higher than you agreed to. The world thus fairly wonders if you can buy a decent paint job for under $20,000 and expect an on- time delivery. In our view, there are enough shops out there capable of delivering first-rate paint jobs, but this much should also be obvious: If you expect speck-free dripless perfection for $8000, the people who call you delusional are right. Even the very best paint jobs will have flaws. The secret to satisfaction is to understand whats acceptable quality and whats not. Youll also need to have sufficient negotiating skills to arrive at a mutual understanding with the shop about what constitutes a complete and correct paint job.

Light Sport Airplanes are here and gaining market share. But there are so many companies out there that its obvious that all wont survive. This story provides a current state-of-play analysis of whose selling what airplanes and who might survive. When the FAA enacted the final rule that established the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) category and the Sport Pilot certificate in April of 2005, the overwhelming question in the mainstream industry was: What now?Depending on who you talked to, Light Sport was: going to rejuvenate general aviation by introducing an affordable, yet regulated way for newcomers to learn how to fly; offer a way for older pilots or those with borderline medical issues a way to extend their years in the left seat; clutter airports with a bunch of poorly-trained weekend warriors flying flimsy, noisy aircraft or it was simply going to die from lack of interest, like the recreational certificate.

In free markets-or so the theory goes-good products rise to the top like cream and bad products are weeded out and tossed aside to wither and die. In the real world, its messier than that, thus we have VHS instead of BetaMax, PCs dominate Macs and the overwhelming majority of airplanes have failure-prone dry vacuum pumps instead of bulletproof wet pumps. What happened here? The precise details seem to be lost to the sands of time but the short version is this: Dry pumps appeared in the mid-1960s, they were substantially cheaper than wet pumps and by the time owners realized how unreliable dry pumps were, the aircraft manufacturers had established them as the defacto standard. And because the OEMs could get away with that, the two wet pump manufacturers-Pesco and Garwin-got out of the wet pump business and eventually disappeared entirely.

Being the best at anything-whether its world class poker, table tennis or making the best headset-requires a unique combination of resources, talent, circumstance and commitment. By far, the most critical ingredient in that recipe is the last: commitment. A determined competitor who may be short of talent or competing at a disadvantage can still prevail with sheer determination and undiluted will.And so it is with some of the products we review every year. Many of these come from small companies with microscopic staffs and limited capital, but with unlimited drive to succeed. In this report, our annual Gear of the Year focus on the best products and services weve seen during the 2006/2007 editorial year; its our goal to illuminate those companies. Herewith is a bakers dozen of aviation-related products that we consider to be top drawer-the best of the best or at least the top value among like products.

Our June report on ice-based cabin coolers drew a challenge from one of the manufacturers, Swampy Cooling Systems. Shortly after our report appeared, Swampy fired off an e-mail asking if we had done our tests correctly. Swampys Jack Stich told us the companys own tests and reports from customers revealed that its IM30 cooler was capable of blowing 60-degree air. (Our tests showed about 70 degrees.)

Garmin WAAS products are exciting, but their pricing and restrictive install rules are not! I was quoted $12,000 to install a WAAS GPS in my aircraft, plus another $1000 to make the Shadin fuel computer work with the 400W. Please publish reviews of the Garmin WAAS products and also tell us if anyone else-Honeywell, for example-will offer competitive products. For now, Im going to use my NMS 2001 and my GPSmap396 as usual and go 30 miles extra to the nearest ILS with ALS and a 150-foot wide runway when the weather is down.

Several pilots we know actually, many pilots we know obsess about the threat of mid-air collisions. Yet as an overall accident cause, mid-airs rate near the bottom of the also-ran category. In the overall scheme of things, its hard to find them in the statistical noise level.Nonetheless, if mid-airs are among your personal demons, youre probably a customer for a traffic avoidance device of some sort and the market has provided, albeit not at prices the freckled-neck masses can afford.