20I7 Island Guides Now Available! P&E TECHNOLOGY Buy Today at flytheislands.com SAVE ON THE THINGS YOU NEED... AND THE THINGS YOU WANT A blue button transforms a sport airplane And what it brings to the GA fleet B Y D AV E H I R S C H M A N ENJOY AOPA MEMBERS-ONLY DISCOUNTS ON: - Avionics - Pilot Supplies - Hangars & Ground - Services Equipment - Training - Parts - Travel Visit aopa.org/lifestyles to start saving today. AIRPLANE DESIGNERS OBSESS about getting control harmony just right-and when they do, their creations are an indescribable joy to fly. A Bucker Jungmann is a Stradivarius of biplanes, and the SIAI Marchetti SF.260, de Havilland Chipmunk, and T-34 Mentor are renowned for superb flying qualities. So why would any pilot voluntarily surrender the sublime experience of flying to inanimate autopilots that can't appreciate these attributes? Why would any pilot forgo such exquisite responsiveness and willingly demote himself to a mere button pusher? 96 | AOPA PILOT May 2017 These thoughts nagged at me as I went through the nontrivial process of adding a Garmin autopilot to my Van's RV-3 sport airplane. The single-seat airplane's tiny size made installing and wiring autopilot servos in the wing and aft fuselage a job that seemed, at times, as though it could only be accomplished by a dexterous child-and an unheated hangar in winter didn't help. But when A&P mechanic with inspection authorization Carlo Cilliers and I finished the installation, the tiny airplanehttp://www.flytheislands.com http://www.aopa.org/lifestyles