Garmin Takes On The Big Boys With An Innovative Cockpit System

While it wasn't exactly a surprise, NBAA 2010 provided the opportunity for Garmin to roll out their latest salvo in the avionics war to see who was going to be making tomorrow's cockpits... this time for the Part 25 set.

The G5000 features WXGA high resolution, wide aspect ratio (12-inch or 14-inch diagonal) primary flight displays (PFD) and multi-function displays (MFD). Because the G5000 is scalable, aircraft manufacturers can choose as many displays as cockpit real estate will allow. The landscape oriented screens have multi-pane display capability that allows multiple pages to be viewed side-by-side on any of the screens. Therefore, pilots can simultaneously view maps, charts, checklists and aircraft systems synoptics, TAWS, TCAS, flight planning, weather or video input pages.

Combining and leveraging the experience gained from designing and delivering automotive consumer products as well as integrated avionic flight decks, the G5000 has a vehicle management system with an infrared touchscreen interface that is easy to understand and use – pilots simply touch what they want to change.

The vehicle  management system has a desktop-like menu interface with intuitive icons, audio and visual feedback, and animation so that pilots know exactly how the system is responding  to their input. The touchscreen also enhances ease of use through common sense functions like “back” and “home” that let pilots quickly retrace their steps or return to the home screen. The vehicle management system also incorporates conventional controls at the bottom of the display.

Cessna is the first company to announce it will use the integrated Garmin G5000 avionics suite, which will be certified for FAR Part 25 operations (commercial transport aircraft). “We have a very successful relationship with Garmin, a company recently ranked by aviation professionals as having the best avionics customer support in the industry in a prestigious third-party survey,” said Cessna Boss Jack Pelton. “The level of reliability and integration and the ease of use of the G5000 are going to be unprecedented and will give Citation Ten owners a new level of operability.”

FMI: www.garmin.com, www.aero-tv.net, www.youtube.com/aerotvnetwork, http://twitter.com/AeroNews