I've drooled over the King KFC 225 and S-Tec MAGIC autopilots for
awhile. At Oshkosh the Bendix rep. told me that an STC for an
Aztec was extremely unlikely. And the MAGIC, well, if I had $70K
to spend on my airplane it wouldn't all go into an autopilot.

I still hope for a decent autopilot for my plane. I don't want a
cobbled-together mess of analog devices and funky user interfaces
(like most of the S-Tec line). The Century TRIDEN looks
interesting but I see that Eastern Avionics is still taking
orders for 2003 deliveries so I don't expect it anytime soon.
Also, I'd much prefer a stack-mounted controller.

So...I was pleasantly surprised to see that Chelton has a new
autopilot, the AP-3C.
http://www.cheltonflightsystems.com/dig_auto.htm
It mounts in the stack, has a low retail price ($12,995), does
not require a bunch of (expensive) external sensors/adapters,
and appears to have a simple interface that makes sense. And
it already has an Aztec STC!

Given that yesterday was my first flight in a month, I'm not too
keen on spending ~$20K on an autopilot, but this looks like a
real winner. I'm going in for my annual this month. Maybe...

--kyler