WICHITA, Kansas – Textron Aviation has introduced the next generation Garmin G1000 NXi integrated flight deck to its piston product line, including the Cessna Skyhawk 172, Cessna Skylane 182, Cessna Turbo Stationair HD T206, Beechcraft Bonanza G36 and the Beechcraft Baron G58.
The new avionics system has received FAA certification in these aircraft, Textron Aviation officials noted.
Deliveries are expected to commence soon, according to company officials.
Features of the G1000 NXi include significant flight display modernization with faster processing times, improved graphics rendering and enhanced readability with LED back-lighting, according to company officials.
Improvements include map overlay on the HSI, improved FMS capabilities to include visual approaches, standard ADS-B in and out, the ability to view VFR and IFR charts on the moving map, animated Sirius XM weather depiction and more.
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- Turbo Stationair 206
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- Baron
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- Bonanza
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- 182 Skylane
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- 172 Skyhawk
Optional enhancements offer wireless database updates and flight plan uploads with Flight Stream and enhanced runway situational awareness that can help pilots avoid runway incursions with SurfaceWatch, according to company officials.
Textron Aviation’s factory-direct piston training team will help customers transition into their new G1000 NXi aircraft, officials added.
In all due respect and in fairness to Garmin, I do not think perhaps that you are making an apples to apples comparison. I don’t think you can compare an Airbus or Boeing transport aircraft to a King Air. The G1000 is not an expensive form of eye candy at the price of $350K versus a multi-million dollar airliner. The G1000 will fly RF Legs but not in conjunction with RNP-AR approach. RNP<0.3 final approach minimums and/or RNP<1 missed approach requires at least one IRU for GPS navigation. IRUs are very expensive. The increased database cost and the aircraft & pilot certification for that is very expensive as well and would be cost prohibitive for a King Air.
In addition, GLS only gets down to Cat 1 minima and in the US there are currently only 11 lines of GLS minima into 2 airports. Compare that to 3748 lines of minima for LPV. For GLS to ever become “basic and standard”, airport specific ground station installations would have to take place which is very costly. Who is going to pay for that? Perhaps GLS will be more feasible with the new L1/L5 multi-frequency/constellation GPS scheduled to be online in 2022. Hope this perhaps clears things up about the capabilities of the G1000 NXi and its applications for the King Air.
Not so, Mr. Braddock. IRUs aren’t needed, and L5 (or even SBAS) isn’t needed. In fact, there are already competing nav units that are soon to market, that will be capable of RNP .1 on RF legs, even for King Air class airplanes, that will reportedly cost less than the amount you cite. Further, there is no practical, technical, engineering, or laws of physics reason why an RNP .1 RF leg FMS couldn’t be built for an order of magnitude less than that, simply by using the full GPS constellation, Kalman filtered with basic gyros (not even AHARS). ANPs of .03 to .07 are readily achievable, leaving plenty of margin for FTE allowance if using a turn rate sensitive prediction vector, especially if using a multi-constellation solution (e.g., GPS + Galileo). As to GLS, it is the global standard of the future, and is vastly less expensive than the fully allocated costs for ILS, while being substantially more capable. That’s why all new production major jet transport aircraft are already equipped, or are provisioned, and have been starting over a decade ago. So my assertion holds, that the G1000NXi is but a flailing attempt at “faux” update modernization, that will relatively soon become the next IFR Loran C equivalent, as more modern avionics, properly incorporates RNP, GLS, FANS data link capability, and ADS-A, -B, and -C. All that could be had for installation in a C172 class aircraft right now, if GA Avionics companies weren’t still trying to protect their entirely outdated product lines, and vested interest revenue streams.
I’m not sure what “competing nav units ” you are referring to unless you work for a competitor of Garmin’s and/or have inside information that others in the aviation industry do not have. Certainly there are quite a few operators out there who have been happy with Garmin’s product offerings over the years and would not label what they do as ‘failing’ (I’m assuming that’s what you meant to write). In any case, I suppose let’s agree to disagree on some points and let’s see what the future brings!
Sir, I’m not with an avionics company, nor a Garmin competitor, …but have been doing development, assessment, testing or certification of CNS based systems and flight decks for over 50 years. Yes, there are new RNP and data link capable systems on the horizon, and yes drones, as well as global airspace use, led particularly by global air transport, and military needs, for increased use of dynamic RNP based trajectories, in eventually in all airspace, will need to be the norm (note SESAR’s 4D work and even FAA ise now starting to see the light, with recent announcement of dynamic 4D RNP based trajectories). Affordable economics for all users from LSAs and gliders to SpaceX, as well as allowing for operating capability for shared airspace use, and assured airspace access is going to force this change. That’s why the 2020 deadline for ADS-B is likely to be breached, because ADS-B (as FAA envisions it, versus a more rational approach in Australia and Canada) is both a failed concept, and there is nowhere near the needed equipage rate in the airlines, military, foreign operators, or GA to make it work. This is partly the fault of entirely obsolete and excessively expensive systems like the G1000, that does not do what it needs to do, while it focuses on doing useless obsolete (airspace wasting) capability like LPV, using expensive unnecessary sensors like SBAS. For a broader context, just reference this week’s Senate testimony by (pending new DOT Secretary) Ms. Chao, where again it is far more likely that FAA will finally be broken up, and re-constituted in a more rational form, with a separate ANS designated, than the G1000 NXi will ever make any useful contribution to operators capability, or NextGen (which would now be better termed, PastGen, without a major redesign).
Thanks for the reply and insight. You make some very interesting points and I have to agree with you on some of them. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens in the next 10 years in aviation. Not only for the technology and “NextGen” aspects you referred to but from the business standpoint as well. There are major moves and changes happening behind the scenes that many every day owner/operators are just not aware of yet. They will have a significant effect on how aircraft are supported and the choices that operators will have (or won’t have for that matter).
Sir, very well spoken! I fully agree.
It is very sad for GA, because we could have had much better and more useful and capable equipment right now, that did all the correct things for operational advantage and safety, if NextGen just had been properly designed from the start. Further, the criteria and specifications needed to be more rational, and not based on utterly obsolete concepts like CRM (e.g., C-N-S being properly balanced, and criteria was needed to properly accommodate both rare-normal and non-normal circumstances, meaning elements like NIC and NAC had to much less constraining than FAA has specified for ADS. That way operators could have used any GPS for ADS-A, -B, or -C, as in Australia). Regardless, NextGen is presently heading straight for a $40B failure. There is virtually zero chance at this point that 2020 will stand for any real deadline. Let’s just hope that when FAA is finally broken up, that the resulting regulatory reorganization, and split out of ATS into a separate ANSP, is done well. It will need to be very sensitive to GA’s need for a substantial transition period, assured airspace access, with rational equipment cost containment, as well as with a rational and fair economic structure.
But can it fly much safer and expeditious RNP .1 SIAPS with close-in RF legs, especially into places like PAJN, CYLW, or NZQN? …Just like modern production jet transports from Toulouse, Charleston, or Seattle have been doing now for well over a decade??? Can it fly GLS approaches?
If not… the G1000NXi is still just an expensive form of “eye candy”, for not being useful in the evolving global airspace system, where RNP and GLS will eventually be basic and standard, considering that ILS’s and SBAS’s excessive and completely unnecessary “Fully allocated costs” are unsustainable and unaffordable.