Despite the widespread adoption of Garmin’s integrated avionics systems in a variety of airplanes from four-place piston singles to turboprops and business jets, never before has the company’s G1000 glass cockpit flown in a helicopter.
The conventional wisdom has always seemed to argue against shoehorning Garmin’s wide LCD flight displays into the tight confines of a small, Part 27 helicopter. I had to admit as I waited in the parking lot outside Orlando, Florida’s Orange County Convention Center for the arrival of Bell’s newest helicopter, the Model 407GX featuring the helicopter version of G1000, that I harbored those same doubts. Did the pairing of a midrange, light single-engine helicopter with G1000 flat-panel displays, each measuring 10.4 inches diagonally, really make sense? Wouldn’t a slimmed-down alternative — say, Garmin’s G500 avionics system — be a better fit in the 407?
