I have not had any of the problems highlighted by other posts with my AV8OR. In fact I think its fantastic. I stick it (with the sucker mount) to the lower left hand cockpit window. I power it from a cigarette lighter type fitting on the instrument panel. If you need to use batteries, you can get spare batteries for about £4 each off t'internet. Fly with a couple of fully charged spares and you won't have a problem. The map is clear and easy to read (and in colour), even in direct sunlight. You can drag the map left and right with your finger (or the stylus that comes with the GPS). I've never had drop outs, grey outs or anything. I always know where I am, when I expect to reach my next waypoint, and with the map profile view, I'm very aware if I'm about to bust CAS or embark on some CFIT. All CAS, Danger areas, MATZ's and ATZ's are pre-loaded. Plus when I get home, I plug the AV8OR into my laptop, double-click on the gps log file, and I can see exactly where I flew using Google Earth.
In my club plane we have a Garmin 430 - a nice piece of kit, but I simply cannot get the hang of it, either to programme a flight plan or simply enter a "Direct to". I find "turn big right knob, press little right knob" all very counter intuitive. The AV8OR flight plan only takes a couple of seconds to create, and for a direct track to anywhere is as simple as sticking your finger on the required location on the screen and clicking the "Direct to" icon. Pow! You get track to steer, bearing, distance to WP, groundspeed, ETE, altitude, CDI all within seconds. They've just introduced a winds aloft function - giving wind speed and direction. It even produces 10nm vector lines for the runway you've chosen at your destination airfield.
I think for its price and what it delivers, its a serious contender to be in every cockpit. Plus the included road GPS will tell you how to get to the nearest pub once you've landed in a strange airfield!
Last edited by beatnik; 6th Aug 2009 at 20:50.