I’ve been very happy with my STEC 20, especially because it’s independent of the vacuum system, and can still help me keep the wings level if I’m partial panel.

However, there have been a series of new, affordable autopilots released in 2017—from Garmin and others—that add a lot more functionality for the same price. I’d probably look at those first now, since you have the advantage of a few years of progress.

https://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Garmin-Announces-New-Retrofit-Autopilots-229297-1.html

I made it out to Winnipeg, but none of those 3. Arctic is a challenge because avgas is rare — you have to try to arrange to buy barrels from band councils and hand-pump it, from what I’ve heard.

Now that they’re older, I find the plane is great for visiting my older daughter at university (1.5-2 hour flight, vs 4.5-5.5 hour drive) or giving her a lift home, for taking my younger daughter down to Boston for Red Sox games, and still, for Hope Air flights whenever I can fit them in. As gas gets more and more expensive, I love that the plane burns only around 7 gph at full cruise power when flying LOP/WOT.

My “new-old bird” sports the Piper-badged wing-leveler A/P made by Century. Been there since the beginning. I am just a visual pilot now (again your blog has motivated me to do my IFR later this autumn), but I already love my A/P on the x-countries. My A/P can be driven by the VOR/OBS or by the Apollo GX60 GPS. Altitude hold would be nice sometimes, but like you say trim works really well in smooth air. This morning I flew A/P for at least an hour. After I trimmed altitude, the old Warrior would hold +/- 50 feet with nearly zero input from me.

Happy flying and keep blogging.