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I have been looking around to buy a 150/152, (probably a 150)and was wondering if there are any radios or other avionics I should avoid. Is there any changes in radio requirements coming in the next few years? How about ones I should avoid, cost of repair and such? I noticed the cost of upgrading radios is quite steep and would prefer to buy a plane I wont have to upgrade soon after purchase. Any other things I should know about stuff in the panel? I'm looking for a VFR 150. No plans for and IFR rating.

Thank you

Chris

Chris as far as avoiding, in general you do not want ARC radios. Of course, if you get a good deal on an airplane with ARC radios, you can do slide in replacements from Mitchell or Narco, so I wouldn't pass up an airplane purely based on it having an ARC radio or two.

If you stick with Bendix King, Narco, Mitchell, Icom you should be fine. Much depends on age though, an older King radio may be useable, but not very desirable. Same is true of discontinued brands, or budget brands such as VAL. Best bet, if in doubt, do a google search on the radio in question, if it is a current model still in production, you should be fine, if not, you can always ask a specific question here. Incidentally, your questions on avionics will probably get a better response if you post to the avionics topic.

Thanks for the information. I'm finding out that I am way behind in my knowledge of electronic gadgets in plans. When I stopped flying Lorran was the big thing. I did not notice there was an Avionics section to this forum untill now. I'm still new to the club so hopefully people will cut me some slack, kind of like a student pilot bombing through the pattern. I'll post it over there too.

Thanks again

Chris

Gotta disagree with you on the Val. I have one in Juliet and it works just fine. It needed a little attention when I first acquired the airplane, but the Val folks did a great job of overhauling it at a reasonable price.

It is reliable, easy to use, and has perfectly usable sound quality and signal strength. If you don't want or need bells and whistles, why pay for 'em. Except, of course, to impress the socks off everybody.

Reg

I've always been a suporter of VAL as a budget radio, having 2 of them installed new 10+ years ago. BUT...the reliability has been less than Garmin or ICOM and the design is archaic. Not as happy with VALs service as I once was either.
ALL in ALL...a decent product though for the money I guess. In retropect I'd be inclined to pick the ICOM 200 as a budget choice.
Just my $.02

Val works, I had one in the Aerobat when I bought it. Replaced it when I got a chance. Like Dan says, they have an archaic design. I saw a new Val comm radio at Sun N Fun last year that was very impressive, only an inch tall, and designed just like the Icom and King, flip flop etc. As far as I know they aren't on the market yet. According to the Val website they are "coming in Summer of 2008" Check out the brochure.
http://www.valavionics.com/productPages/comms/COM%202000%20Brochure%2005-08.pdf
A little high on the price, but in other ways they seem like a good match for the limited radio space in a 150-152.

I saw the new VAL at Arlington. I got the impression it was on the market. I chatted with the guy for quite awhile, and pointed out that I wouldn't buy one until he figgered out a way to make it a slide-in replacement for the 760.

Reg

Hard to see how that would be feasible, the 760 is nearly a half inch taller. The way I see it, a pair of the model 200 radios will fit in less space than most single comms currently installed in 150-152's. I have a pair of the Garmin SL40's, they are 1.3 inches tall each, same as the Icom and King KY-97A. That is previously the smallest form factor.

The Val 2000 radios are sheer simplicity, with manual squelch, but they do have dual readouts, and flip flop frequency exchange. 99% of the time that's all I do with my comms, preset the next freq, and flip flop. I'm sometimes annoyed by the automatic squelch, and I rarely use the stored frequencies. Once in a great while I will monitor the standby freq, but I really have no real need for that feature because I have a second comm for that purpose.

Ahem. Problem is at $2,600 a pair, The Val 2000's are not that great of a value. I paid about $3,000 for a pair of the Garmins, and they are obviously a superior radio.

If I only had one comm radio, I'd choose the Garmin SL40. Otherwise if I had to do it over again, I'd probably install a pair of the Val 2000's, purely based on their simplicity and small size.

I planned to post a quick summary of all the available comms here as a reference, but will do that in the Avionics area instead, because this topic will eventually get moved down and lost in the shuffle here in Buyers & Sellers.

Chris:

As a recent plane buyer (a 1975 C-150 Commuter) I more or less agree with all of the previous comments.

I have a King 125 NAV/COM which came in the plane when I bought it. No glideslope, but it will track VORs. You have to go one or more steps higher (the King 155) to get VOR and glideslope.

VOR and DME equipment, although still operational, are probably going to be replaced by GPS-based systems. Maybe not immediately, but in the five to ten year range, I would guess.

I would seriously consider up-grading to TSO'ed GSP equipment.

GPS approaches already exist for a number of airports.

I came to flying about the time that Loran and VOR was de rigor as the latest electronics available, but GPS is the wave of the future.

I would suggest that you read some of the prior posts in this sub-section.

For example, take a look at Jim's H.'s panel, which is pretty much state-of-the-art, and merges position location, range distance and bearing, and even Collision Avoidance information on a single display.

Good luck finding a plane. Avionics are relatively important, but the plane you eventually get will have some, and you will probably want to up-grade and/or modernize anyway.

Hey Paul, me and deb dropped by IZA today around 3:00 this afternoon (saturday) for a cold soda, and a plane that looked much like your avatar parked next to us and took a table in the FBO. Did you park next to a blue over white 152?

We dig Santa Ynez for the peaceful environment, as well as watching the gliders do they're thing.