Posted by lex, on June 30, 2008
Conscientious readers will remember that your correspondent has a mild case of the hankerin’s for an Aviat Husky all tricked out with mudders, the better for to land on creek beds out back. They may not realize, however, that he’s also entranced with another GA design built for entirely different applications, the Cirrus SR-22.
Avionics manufacturer Garmin and Cirrus have teamed to create what is quite probably the premier cockpit panel for a GA aircraft in the Cirrus Perspective – a $48,000 add-on to the familiar G1000 design. It’s groovy.
When I was first learning how to break the surly bonds, I remember that an instructor once told me that the best artificial horizon in the world is the real one. His point was elegant, if not entirely subtle: If you want to execute precision maneuvers in a high performance aircraft, it helps to look outside ever once in a while. Dummy.
Which is not always possible when the weather turns to goo, however. And disorienting, to boot. Thus the effort that avionics manufacturers have undergone trying to make the world inside the cockpit mirror the world outside. Intuitive, like.
These are screen caps from this page of videos, showing “highways” in the sky, traffic and terrain views, runway layouts and the ob-stackles that lay in our path.
[11-26-20 – The screen captures Lex spoke up weren’t captured by the Wayback Machine – see his link above – Ed. ]
Pretty cool for an airplane that makes 211 KTAS in the flight levels. Cooler still when you recognize that the FA-18 that I flew had nothing like this capability.
Of course, we wuz built of sterner stuff, in dem days.
The Lexicans 