The Garmin 96 is a very nice unit. Typical of Garmin it is easy to use, and I have never had any sat reception issues with the unit mounted on the yoke. However, you do not have to purchase an aviation GPS. I know of people who have purchased non-aviation receivers and have simply loaded all of the waypoints they need into the database, and for half the price have received the same functionality, just not the extras such as a database with airspace/navaids etc loaded.