Enhancements Introduce “E-Copilot” Capabilities For Reduced Pilot Workload And Increased Safety

The model year 2016 version of Daher’s TBM 900 very fast turboprop aircraft incorporates improvements to further enhance flight envelope protection, improve warning identification and facilitate flight planning, the company said in a news release from the Singapore Air Show.

These enhancements, which are being detailed during the show at the Changi Exhibition Centre, were introduced with Garmin’s new software release for the G1000 V15 avionics suite – which is the TBM 900’s all-glass cockpit configuration.

“With the Model Year 2016 TBM 900, we are offering our customers a concentration of innovation, technology and safety improvements that can be compared to bringing an ‘e-copilot’ into the cockpit to reduce the pilot’s workload,” explained Nicolas Chabbert, the Senior Vice President of Daher’s Airplane Business Unit. “Those innovations reflect our policy of constant improvement, which offers TBM customers the latest technology available for the optimized use of their aircraft.”

The enhancements include:

• Flight envelope monitoring through the Electronic Stability and Protection (ESP) and the Under-speed Protection (USP) systems, both of which have been added to the autopilot. These electronic monitoring and stability augmentation systems assist the pilot in maintaining the aircraft in a stable flight condition when flight parameters are exceeded.
• New aural alerts for stall, overspeed, landing gear extension and oxygen mask use. These alerts replace aural sounds for better warning identification.
• An AOA (Angle of Attack) sensor with visualization on the cockpit’s Primary Flight Display electronic instruments.
• Two-way wireless link-up to the aircraft’s Garmin G1000 all-glass cockpit avionics suite from a mobile device that runs the Garmin Pilot application. This Bluetooth linkup is via Garmin’s Flight Stream 210 wireless gateway, and enables the syncing of prepared flight plans and streaming of GPS, weather, traffic and other information to/from the avionics system.

In addition, Daher is including the L-3 Lightweight Data Recorder from L-3 Aviation Products as standard equipment on the TBM 900 for voice and flight data recording. This 5 lb.- category system has become an industry reference for general aviation and executive aircraft, as well as helicopters.

Offered by Daher as a TBM 900 option is the Garmin GRA 55 all-digital radar altimeter, which provides highly accurate altitude-above-ground and rate-of-change readouts.

(Image provided with Daher new release)

FMI: www.tbm.aero