Instrument panels aboard the Cessna Skylane, Turbo Skylane, Skywagon
and Turbo Skywagon piston singles soon will look a lot like Citation
Mustang because Garmin G1000 fully integrated avionics with dual
10.4-inch flat-panel displays will be offered as a Nav III package
option on 2004 models. Cessna reduced the base of the new aircraft
price, so the G1000 package will cost no more than 2003 models
equipped with conventional Nav II avionics packages.
The response to the availability of G1000 in Cessna singles surprised
even Jack Pelton, the firm's acting president. "We've racked
up 300 new orders right here at NBAA," Pelton told Show News
Sunday evening. G1000 offers many of the same features found on
Citation XLS and Sovereign flight decks, such as large screens,
fully integrated nav displays and EICAS, plus altitude preselect
and airspeed and altitude trend vectors. Unlike those systems,
though, G1000 is all panel-mount, except for the autopilot servos.
Behind the LCDs are dual solid-state AHRS, dual digital air data
computers, flight guidance systems, engine/airframe data acquisition
units and integrated comm/nav/ident/GPS radios.
Maintenance is easy with G1000. Each of the displays can be pulled
out on a long electrical umbilical cord after four mounting screws
are removed. Beneath are all the panel-mount components, each
housed in quick-disconnect LRU boxes. Hot box swaps can be performed
in less than five minutes. The Cessna production folks in Independence,
KS are looking forward to a total avionics wire count of 175 for
the entire G1000 system.
Garmin keeps the OEM cost of G1000 down by leveraging its technology
investment over several product market segments. Much of G1000's
functionality was borrowed from Garmin's G430/530 navigation systems.
The displays were adapted from marine units that already had been
tested in the salt, sun and sweat environment aboard small craft.
