Awesome. That’s the word that kept running through my mind when I first stepped into the new Gulfstream 550 cockpit. The aviation industry has been talking about “glass” cockpits for more than 20 years, but Gulfstream has finally done it. Four 14-inch flat-panel displays mounted in the horizontal landscape position cover the entire instrument panel, presenting more viewing area than any business jet.
Gulfstream calls its new cockpit PlaneView, and it is an exclusive version of Honeywell’s Primus Epic avionics system. PlaneView is integrated into every system on the airplane, and pilots operate it with traditional keyboards and knobs, or, another Gulfstream exclusive, two cursor control devices mounted to fall naturally to each pilot’s outboard hand.
