Thanks for the input

Aluminum can act as an RF shield but not as a magnetic field shield,
given that the interference is in the RF band I figured aluminum would
be OK (and to keep it light) but some iron based material would do both
and perhaps is a better choice.

Using the PC architecture has so many advantages (and obviously at the
moment a showstopper bug), I can easily store the history of a trip on
a removable USB card, on this USB card is a directory for music that
can be played and piped into the stereo intercom, high tech displays
with graphs, charts, etc.. is easy, it is inexpensive, and easy to
program with high level languages. Doing the assembly on the 8051 data
controller was interesting but to do the same functions as described
above would be very very hard (for me). I have gone so far down this
road I am loath to junk it (even if that is the right thing to do) and
tell myself if I bang my head against the wall enough times the answer
will show up. I know people use their laptops in cockpits without this
problem so there must be a way.