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Holiday Gift Guide
by Sean Fulton
 SCOTT VEST HIGH-TECH FLEECE PULLOVER
This pullover will make an ideal gift for any business or leisure traveler. It features five cleverly-concealed pockets in one of the most comfortable micro-fleece tops you will ever wear. The fabric is lightweight, breathable and designed so you don't get all sweaty. And hidden inside are pockets for some of your most urgent necessities, including your cell phone, sun glasses and ipod. Available in camo or grey for $59.99 from scottevest.com.
 RADIAL PISTON DESK LAMP
Impress your friends and co-workers with a bit of aviation history. Each of these slick-looking, halogen desk lamps has been hand-crafted from the piston of a Pratt & Whitney and Curtiss Wright aircraft engine. Just $225 from motoart.com. 
 GARMIN IQUE 3600A
In what is perhaps the greatest integration of aviation and everyday life to come along in years, Garmin has figured out how to bolt a top-of-the-line, aviation-quality GPS onto a Palm-powered hand-held computer. The result, the iQue3600a, is a powerful tool that will help you navigate your day as well as the skies. At work, the unit is a standard, Palm OS-powered device, with an address book, calendar, and other productivity tools. You can even use the optional MapSource CD-ROM to download street maps to the unit, providing great navigational guidance on the road. At the airport, just snap on the highly-customized cradle with aviation-specific feature buttons, and you've got a powerful, aviation GPS unit, complete with Jeppesen terrain and sectional chart databases and a built-in, TAWS-like warning system to provide obstacle clearance. The unit is aggressively priced at $1,099 and is available from gulfcoastavionics.com
 GARMIN 396
This innovative handheld from Garmin picks up where the highly-prized 296 leaves off, adding XM and NEXRAD weather to what is already one of the hottest-selling portable navigation systems in the United States. The G396 comes with a yoke mount, power adapter, and a new GXM remote antenna for picking up XM weather information, which can then be overlaid across the units navigational maps for unparalleled situational awareness. Average price is around $2,495 from pilotmart.net.
 FLIGHT CHEETAH FL180
Whoever said size doesn't matter never tried to read navigation information off the 6-square-inch, girly-man screen of a PDA. Now you can put a stop to all that with squinting with the Flight Cheetah FL180, a portable navigation device that plugs directly into your Windows 2000 notebook computer. The FL 180 provides WAAS GPS moving map navigation, terrain and obstacle mapping and alerts, approach overlays, and even 15-meter Landsat imagery, all on a HUGE 22-square-inch screen. The unit has optional WxWorx, artificial horizon and traffic alerting capabilities. The base FL180 is just $995 from your favorite pilot shop or True Flight, Inc. at aviationsafety.com.
 PANASONIC GETS TOUGH
Frequent business travel means your computer takes a lot of abuse. Now there's a way to protect your business investment and upgrade your cockpit experience in a single purchase. The Panasonic Toughbook18 is a rugged, shock-absorbing notebook computer that connects to just about every wireless network out there and has enough horsepower to crunch your biggest spreadsheet. But what makes this machine truly air-worthy is its flip-top display that can be rotated, instantly turning the notebook into a tablet PC that will run electronic flight-bag software from companies like Jeppesen or Flight Prep. The Toughbook weighs about 4.5 pounds and has a magnesium-alloy case, rubberized edges and corners for shock absorption, and sealed connector ports to eliminate dust and moisture problems. It's packed with as much performance as any top-line notebook, has a battery life of four to six hours, and can even be purchased with a built-in GPS unit for real-time flight-tracking on your EFB. The Toughbook runs $3,800 and can be purchased through a Panasonic dealer. For more information, visit www.panasonic.com.
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