The Smart Aviator

Even before the Air Canada CRJ 900 and a fire truck collided at New York's LaGuardia Airport killing two pilots this past March, the FAA has been committed to equipping airport vehicles with ADS-B transmitters. For starters, the agency is investing $16.5 million to equip its tech ops and other vehicles with ADS-B hardware, primarily uAvionix VTU-20 (20 watts) UAT units. Designed for an easy installation on nearly anything that drives on the airport surface, the VTU-20 shares tech that's also built into the company's budget-friendly skyBeacon and tailBeacon ADS-B Out systems for small GA airplanes. AvBrief's Larry Anglisano talked with Cyriel Kronenburg at uAvionix to learn about the interface.

Longtime aviation author and retired airline captain Les Abend joins AvBrief’s A-list editorial team with a focus on take-it-to-the-bank advice for safe, affordable, and smart airplane ownership.

Answering the overwhelming reader demand for new content focused on IFR training, technique and proficiency, AvBrief is delivering The Instrument Aviator. The premium fresh content (not reheated material found elsewhere) written by familiar authors/educators is dedicated entirely to instrument flying and caters to a wide variety of instrument pilots—from seasoned pros to students. As Instrument Aviator regular contributor and CFI-I Elaine Kauh and AvBrief's Larry Anglisano discuss in this episode of the Smart Aviator podcast, the timing is right to get serious with deep-diving, hard-hitting scenario-based IFR articles and AvBrief is bringing it strong.

As more users look for alternatives for flight planning and cockpit tablet navigation apps, a program called 8Flight Aviator EFB has been getting a lot of attention for its competitive and fast-growing feature list, plus its reasonable subscription price that’s lower than some of the leading programs. But as 8Flight EFB founder Matt Guthmiller explains in this episode of the Smart Aviator podcast on AvBrief, creating a full-featured EFB app from the ground up —with the features that demanding pilots expect—is no easy task.

The full-featured, well-respected ForeFlight Mobile iPad app has been in the spotlight lately with some loyal users pondering other options—of which there are plenty. But switching apps (and taking the plunge to an EFB if you've never used a tablet app in flight) can be a major, difficult decision. As Smart Aviator on AvBrief ventures on an in-depth aviation tablet app review, we sat down with John Zimmerman at Sporty's for some guidance on how you might go about the decision.

While media praised the recent Garmin Autoland King Air save, the installer—Blackhawk Aerospace—also deserves credit. Installing aftermarket Autoland and autothrottle is complex, and full testing is impossible without an in-flight  emergency. On this podcast, Blackhawk’s Conrad Theisen discusses the install and the real-world save.

Cockpit smoke emergencies in air carrier and commercial jet ops are more common than you might think. So common that a company called VisionSafe developed the EVAS—for Emergency Vision Assurance System. Its deployment has been responsible for lots of safe landings in everything from airliners to corporate jets to freighters.

Avionics buyers want options. With roots planted deeply in the experimental aircraft market, Dynon Avionics has been gaining sizable momentum in the current market with a wide range of avionics products for both experimental and certified aircraft.

Flight1's advanced sims offer G1000 NXi realism for Cirrus and Piper pilots—ideal tools for avionics mastery outside the cockpit.

At AirVenture 2025 at Oshkosh, Nighthawk Flight Systems got a lot of attention when it showed a clean sheet integrated avionics suite called Guardian. The Guardian was an attention getter with its tight graphics, thin displays, a liberal IO that works with a large variety of third-party analog and digital avionics, plus a price tag that was said to be under $40,000. Nighthawk Flight Systems (it bought Sandel Avionics a few years ago) promised to start shipping FAA-approved (via an AML-STC) as early as December 2024. Since that's just a couple of months away, we followed up on the project with company CEO Paul Martin, who not only promised a seamless installation and high-level field support, but set aggressive goals for the system's initial certification and growth.