The owners of this nice classic, Ken and Richard flew in from the San Francisco area to checkout our shop prior dropping off the aircraft; they wanted to be comfortable with the avionics shop they were going to leave their "Pride & Joy" with.  After a little discussion and looking over the aircraft; a deal was struck; Ken and Richard flew home to returned a couple of months later for the avionics project.

As most Cessna Cardinal owners know, the 1978 Classic was the last year the Cardinal was manufactured, never again to roll off the assembly line.  In my opinion, the 1978 was the year Cessna "Finally got it right".  The landing gear that plagued prior Cardinals seemed to have disappeared  and the 28Vdc electrical system elevated the Cardinal to Big Airplane status.  

First in line was removing the old ARC "Stuff" (to put it mildly).  Out came the ARC RT-385's, transponder and the huge ARC ADF.  After some discussing a panel arrangement was agreed upon and the custom panels were made to the owners desires.  Being an instrument pilot, Ken was impressed with the UPSAT equipment and wanted a complete UPSAT stack.  We built up the stack using a SL-15, audio/mkr/ICS, MX20 monster size MFD, SL30 nav/com with ILS, GX60 GPS/Com and a SL70 transponder to keep ATC happy.  Ken does fly in some busy airspace and wanted reliable equipment and the UPSAT is certainly reliable.  Dual glideslope indicators were installed along with the required remote annunciators.  To keep track of the fuel the JPI FS-450 was installed.  During the installation we replaced the VHF com antennas along with the marker antenna.  The Cessna overhead speaker was also replaced at this time, the owners wanted the aircraft correct when it left our shop.

Lower switch panels were installed to accommodate the new pull-type circuit breakers and equipment switches.  Ken and Richard promise later to let us remove the eye-sore Cessna "Vegimatic" 300A autopilot and powder coat the control yokes.  You'll have to admit, this is one fine Classic!