Today, even the smallest turbine aircraft come EFIS-equipped from the factory. Why should piston aircraft be stuck with old-fashioned mechanical instruments?
I first read about the new Sandel instrument shortly after the prototype was first unveiled at NBAA and AOPA in October 1997. Not long afterwards, Tom Rogers of Avionics West saw the unit at the annual Aircraft Electronics Association trade show and told me how impressed he was. I first saw the SN3308 “in the flesh” at Oshkosh in August 1998, and drooled over it for days afterwards. But to be honest, I was too much of a skinflint to spring for the $8,000 purchase price plus installation. So beyond lusting in my heart, I did nothing. A couple of months later, I had the opportunity to take a ride from Wichita to Washington, D.C. and New York and back in one of Cessna’s new Mach .92 Citation X muscle machines. After dropping off all the pax at DCA and TEB, it was just me and the two pilots on the return flight to ICT. So naturally, I spent the whole time standing in the cockpit door looking over the shoulders of the cockpit crew. The Citation X was equipped with the very latest Honeywell
