Search Results for: Garmin G1000

“Got along without you ‘fore I met you, gonna get along without you now.” So there, Garmin Perspective in the Cirrus SR22! Just as the lyrics suggest, my feelings are mixed. I’d love to be able to get along with the Perspective-equipped Cirrus, but frankly, that option is above my pay grade. I’ve struggled along […]

Are you a proactive or reactive pilot? From our early primary training days, weve learned to fly by the airspeed indicator and listen for the stall warning horn when we venture too close to the lower edge of the planes airspeed envelope. Or, we live with the monotone blare while practicing the stall series. But what does it really tell us? Like other traditional primary instruments, there is some level of lag in their indications, and the information we receive is delayed or incomplete. Enter the angle of attack (AOA) indicator. While ubiquitous in gliders, where lift is life, chances are good your primary trainer did not have such instrumentation on board, although your training covered the concept of angle of attack. Ah, stalls. During primary training, we memorize the aircrafts stall speeds, clean and dirty, in 1G flight. We are further admonished that the stall speed increases as the wing loading, as well as gross weight, increases. And then theres density altitude to consider. All these factors conspire to sabotage lift, and while the dissipation of lift has its place (such as right before touchdown), its better to be proactive in preserving lift than chasing its loss.

Since its certification back in 1994, the hallmark of the remarkably successful Pilatus PC-12 turboprop single has been its tremendous flexibility and utility — with a cabin full of passengers and cargo, it can go from a cozy dirt strip to the city lights a thousand miles distant, flying far above the terrain and much […]

L-3 Communications has announced it received FAA Technical Service Order (TSO) authorization for its SmartDeck glass panel avionics suite. At the same time, the company announced Supplemental Type Certification (STC) approval for the Cirrus SR22 G2. That gives Cirrus owners the option of having the SmartDeck installed as a retrofit. No price was announced for […]

The most common questions I am asked by pilot friends is which airplane I plan to buy next, and which airplane do I think they should buy next. Clearly it is a topic every pilot thinks about a lot, and it remains a hot topic because there isn’t any clear-cut answer. For many years the […]

I feel a bit like Senator Claghorn, pausing to adjust the papers on the podium before raising my eyes to the gallery and in deep, mellifluous tones saying, “With deep respect for my colleague across the aisle, I rise in support of the Garmin GNS 480.” In the interest of full disclosure, I have to […]

It seems that every bit of new aviation technology is initially made much more complicated and confusing for pilots to use than is necessary. For example, when GPS navigators first became available, every instructional course from the FAA or others would start out describing the constellation of GPS satellites, their orbital altitude and so on. […]

A glass-panel cockpit is intended to make flying an airplane simpler – and safer – by presenting virtually every bit of information the pilot could ever require during a flight front and center on a single display. In more sophisticated glass cockpits, there are at least two displays: the PFD, primary flight display, that can […]

One Step Forward

Having just returned from my annual pilgrimage to Oshkosh for EAAs AirVenture extravaganza, Im struck by two seemingly contradictory observations: First, the planes and products seem to get better each year. Second, the pilots dont.

Regarding the first observation, who can argue that products like the mostly certified Eclipse 500, to-be-produced HondaJet, Cessna LSA and NGP (next-generation piston, a.k.a Cirrus-killer), Garmins GPSMAP 496 and the various G1000 offspring, among other new toys, arent about the coolest things on the planet since canned beer? Meanwhile, the maturing light sport aircraft category is beginning to realize its promise of getting…

Forcasting future trends is difficult in any business, but predicting the direction aviation will move has been particularly inaccurate over the past many decades. Part of the problem is that aviation is fundamentally cyclical, both in the manufacture of airplanes and in their use. Changes in the economy appear to have more to do with […]