Henry Q. Bibb wrote:
: I had the 135-135A upgrade done on my unit a few years ago, at the King
: factory. They charged something like $500 for it. You gain the
: capability to display some additonal pages of information, but for me,
: the real biggie was the display. Apparently, the KLX-135A display is
: what King wanted to use in the first place, but it wasn't ready when the
: KLX-135 shipped. The new display is much more readable in daylight for
: me. They also tweaked the adjustments of the COMM and GPS so it seemed
: to work better.

: Is it worth it? I thought so. Of course, the whole thing is priced in
: those itty-bitty "aviation dollars" that take large piles to add up to
: enough money to get anything done.

I have sorta looked into that of late since I was googling for the battery. I
didn't know that it was an option. Looks like that is a factory-only modification. I
called a local shop that told me that it is now $621.55 from the factory to turn it
into a KLX-135A. I'm still debating as to whether or not it's worth it. We only paid
$1200 for it to begin with 3 years ago. I'm not a real big believer in the moving map
(especially one that's as tiny as that screen). I downloaded the user manual and it
still looks like they don't have the most useful combination of information in NAV
mode. One that shows:
Bearing,
Ground Track,
Speed,
CDI,
and maybe ETA.

I find myself always having to flip between the page with the CDI and speed,
and the one with the Actual Ground Track. The KLX-135A still doesn't look like it
will do that (except to show track as a tiny iconic picture).

In addition to the upgrade, the avionics shop said that the battery change
would be $45 and about 1.5 hours to do. Basically, $45 + $125 or so. Fortunately for
me, shortly after hearing about the labor involved, my unit happened to fall apart by
persons unknown. It further was revealed that the battery is marked as a TL-5135 and
looks exactly like: http://tinyurl.com/b8esr

The same unknown person left a note saying a new one will be ordered,
resoldered, and the unit assembled at no labor cost to me. Imagine my surprise, but
I'm not complaining!

-Cory

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* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
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