wrote in message
...
one, and fresh batteries with you. Having used both, however, between the
wiring clutter in the
cockpit, intermittent cig lighters, and mediocre reception from a non
hard-mounted antenna, a
panel mount is a more solid part of the plane. They're not very
expensive, of course I
primarily did the install.

If you want, you can install fresh batteries before a trip and/or travel
with extra batteries in your flight bag and then there is no wiring clutter
at all.

I am not sure why you feel there is mediocre reception from a non
hard-mounted antenna; perhaps this was an older generation GPS or perhaps it
has something to do with your particular cockpit. My Garmin 295 works fine
without any external antenna at all. And if antenna reception is a problem
in any given airplane, just have an external GPS antenna installed with a
connector on the panel -- that is still way cheaper than a panel-mount GPS.

There is actually a key advantage to a handheld GPS being used as a regular
part of an avionics suite -- if I were to lose my electrical system while in
IMC, I would not skip a beat continuing to a landing (preferably finding
VMC, but IMC if necessary). With a handheld GPS in the flight bag one
would need to pull out the GPS, remember how to use it, initialize its
position, etc., etc.

I don't think that a Garmin 430 makes much sense for most pilots....
Especially for
Jay's mission. If it were priced more affordably, it would make good
sense. I'd rather outfit
a whole stack of older equipment for a lack of single-point failure

OK, I may agree with you there on second thought considering the plane and
the mission as I understand it. Keeping with the "trailing edge of
technology" argument, I would say that there are excellent bargains to be
had with a used Northstar M3 Approach GPS. Or for a slight upgrade, a King
KLN94 Approach GPS offers nice value as well.


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com