I just purchased a Sony TR-240 or 260 (dont remember which exactly, but it is the only 200 series digital) this past weekend. I went ahead and purchased the digital because it seems to be what predominately prevails and has the best picture quality. I know it has soooo many editing and video features that you would have to be making a small budget production to use them all. Anyway, it has a 25X optical, and 700X digital zoom, which is way more than you'll ever need. Found that out firsthand at a fly-in in Monaville, Texas. So, yes the image stabilization does help, but I think you'll have a steadier shot if you can look through the eyepiece and not the LCD screen. You tend to try to view the real action and what is on the screen at the same time, and you can get real shakey, real quick. Also, it is hard to film planes moving large distances at significant speeds. What I do like is that on this model and on the ones above it is imaging software that allows you to upload movies or still images and edit them on your computer. On this particular model, you can save still images via a still shot button on the Digital8 tape. On the higher models, they actually have a memory stick dedicated to this task, which I think is better(and 100$ more!). But for TOC type stuff where there are large planes torque rolling and what not, it will be very easy to use. Some guys did such a demo, and that footage is the best I captured all weekend.