It used to be that equipping for legal instrument flight meant buying radios with glideslope and adding pitot heat. And while the equipment requirements in the FARs have changed little over the years, the technology sure has. These days entry-level EFIS and GPS navigators come well-equipped and approved for IFR, and even if you don’t actually plan to fly IFR, the equipment you bought is up to the task. In some ways, that makes the buying decision easier.
On the other hand, the market for retrofit EFIS and GPS navigators is crowded, and it’s easy to over-equip (which means overspending) for basic IFR flying. In this report we’ll backstop the buying decision and focus on the latest entry-level gear you might use for instrument training, light IFR, flying GPS approaches and as a bonus, also adding a healthy dose of digital reliability to an aging analog panel. The goal is to keep the total buy-in to a realistic $15,000 price point. (We’ll never say avionics upgrades are cheap, but they may be cheaper than ever before