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.
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.
Of course, showing our *seasoned* experience, we well remember when the capability itself was classified above Secret and was used for ‘mission planning’ – back in the day that is…
- SJS
SJ,
also remember the size of the darn box(s) and the cost, yet now it fits neatly into private plane. that is just a sweet plane, and I love the CAPS.
claudio
Boldface for jumping the GA engineering hurdle economically: EXPERIMENTAL ! ! ! !
RV-8 seems to be the fighter pilot’s steed of choice.
Sissy stuff. Having all that information in one place – heck anyone can fly instruments with a set up like that. When it gets too easy they won’t want to pay the big bucks anymore.
Whatever happened to needle ball, airspeed, altitude? Need to keep that scan sharp, ya know.
Sorry, just had too much Geritol today.
…or you can go for the third option: the SmartDeck.
http://www.as.l-3com.com/products/smartdeck/
Includes a FLIR system for those northern Minnesota nights where deer (or tractors) may be occupying the runway you are approaching. Lotsa goodness in the light GA market right now.
All this stuff makes the old high priest(est) of the ultimate in analog busy cockpits,, the old F-4 series(take your pick) look like rubbbin’ sticks to make fire to these old eyes.
Pardon my saying so, but are you flying an airplane or playing a video game? I ask this because in video games you get to generally re-spawn and/or restart at the last saved point. Doesn’t tend to happen in the Real World.
And this real world looks like I’m trusting a lot to a programmer who may or may not have been slightly off his concentration due to the bottle of Old Overshoes during his lunch of Blue-Plate Heartburn Express.
Give me mechanicals any day. If they fail, I can probably understand why and adjust. If the software fails, I likely won’t notice until my flight fails. At which point, that kind of limits my options.
– Max
Anymouse: The RV-8 is still my dream plane. I got an RV-6 because 1) I needed a tailwheel endorsement and CFIs insane enough to ride in the back seat during that training are few and far between, and 2) the daughter, who is the only female (or sentient being, for that matter) in the house gullible enough to fly with me cried when she learned that she would be relegated to the rumble seat.
Max: They have steam gauges as backups for the must-haves: http://www.flyplatinum.com/images/planes/sr22gts-interior.jpg
And there is always the airframe parachute if all else fails.
I recently started consulting to an avionics company that makes these kinds of displays, and I mean they manufacture the screen itself (in 10 and 15 inch sized flat panels) and they program them as well. You would be surprised by how many of the programmers (young and old alike) and systems engineers have little or no experience in aviation. They have no idea of the gravity of what they are programming in terms of the consequences if they get something wrong (i. e. large object falling out of the sky with people inside). And a lot of it speaks back to the culture they are living in, using terms and phraseology that desensitizes a function to those real world consequences. As an example the naming of the cockpit crew as “flight staff”, “Captain” and “First Officer” or “FO”. When I first asked what the he** that meant these guys looked at me like I was the FNG in aviation. I reminded them that there was a huge connotation between that and say “Pilot”. This permeates into the programming effort as well as there are many mnemonic variables that have no correlation to their ultimate physical action. Such as “Mgr_d2land” and I say: “Landing_gear_Down_+_Locked” – blank stares from C-programming crowd, I mean there are no penalties for long variable names – call it what it is so that you know what happens if it is wrong.
The good news is that the FAA is so far behind the industry and technology that they insist on testing and performance standards that are painful to the extreme and I for one hope it stays that way despite all the industry pressure to modernize and streamline (or automate and reduce as the industry wants).
They do make a good product, have a look at the cockpit of the Eclipse 500, they build that AVIO-NG stuff right here. And they are working hard to add “synthetic vision” (as it’s called) to their offering as well as a bunch of other stuff (EFB, FMS and WAAS). They do a lot of retrofit work, converting over all those mechanicals (yeah I know it pains me too).
I was brought in to help with the WAAS integration effort on some nebulous military aircraft flown by some nebulous agency with a lot of money, but they have found me useful for some other stuff they are doing.
BT: Jimmy T sends.
It’s all good. Even the portables- I have a Garmin 196 for my classic bugsmasher and I hate to say it but I trust the info on that neat little MFD more than my steam gages.
Daveg- get your tailwheel in another airframe, a Citabria or something, first. My bro-in-law did it that way before he jumped into his RV-4 for the first time.
The main problem, as I see it, is that you have to pay for it yourself now.
Having Uncle Sam pay for the steed and fuel and all was really good.
But now, fitting all that fun stuff in the budget is quite a challenge.
The voice of experience here though not with things with wings.
Gee JimmyT, you’re branching out- giving everybody a brain headache my friend!
Mmmmmm…mnemonic!
re- “They have no idea of the gravity of what they are programming in terms of the consequences if they get something wrong (i. e. large object falling out of the sky with people inside).”
Truer words re lines o’code and aircraft systems was ever written. When they write all that code for UCAVs that’ll be flying over your house and mine I hope they keep what you said in mind. Not.
b2
The flashy lights are nice and seem to work well. Steam gauges for anything other than backups will disappear completely (from new aircraft) in 10 years or less.
The glass cockpit just doesn’t have that “charm”, though. . .
And the Cirrus is kinda cool, but the sidesticks killed it for me. Oh, and it’s got that big goofy wheel up front.
Vans RV-8. . .very sexy.
Humble, I agree about the Vans, but I like the RV-7. Not quite as sporty as the “8″, but I like my passenger sitting to my right if I have a choice. I’d love to build one, maybe when all the kids are out of the house.
‘course, then the plane is only as good as the guy who built it.
For anyone who ever thought of building a plane, here is a great site. It’s a little dated, since this guys plane has been flying for several years, but he runs step by step through the entire building process.
http://www.rvproject.com/
Lancair IV-PT has my eye, but they’re pricey by comparison. 330 KTAS at FL250 and enough glass you’d need to bring the Windex along. Sidestick is okay with me.
Smart Deck –> Ohh…Ahh…
L3 has other items that hold my interest too. Great company.