Cirrus Goes With Garmin…But This Time, Its Different
It was probably inevitable that Cirrus would eventually offer the SR22 with the Garmin G1000. But they’ve designed a version of it that offers exceptional integration and ease of use.
Garmins G1000 is arguably the King Dog of all light aircraft EFIS. Its capable, has terrific displays and lately, with the G700, it leads the league in autopilot integration. Its also overly complex, expensive and not always easy to use, which is why Ive had a largely ambivalent feeling about it. I encounter the G1000 several times a year when testing airplanes for review and because I dont use it regularly, I dread having to operate it occasionally, so I let the demo pilot worry about it.Yeah, I know, its learnable. I have learned it. But once learned, you need to stay current on it and I usually cant. Frankly, I just dont want to work that hard-all of that head work should yield a major payoff and, frankly, with the G1000, it just doesnt. It turns out that Alan Klapmeier has a similar notion about the G1000, which is one reason why Cirrus has stuck with the not-quite-as-capable-but-easier-to-use Avidyne Entegra. Klapmeier figured, evidently rightly, that complex glass was just fine for airplanes with two pilots who train often and fly often, but not for weekend owner-flown airplanes used for serious IFR.Cirrus has built quite a little airplane empire on the fundamental notion that airplane operation should be as transparent and intuitive as possible, which the Cirrus models certainly are, glass cockpits and all. Other airplane manufacturers-Cessna, Mooney, Diamond and Beech-offer airplane-specific versions of the G1000, but customers of those companies have had to just suck it up and learn the G1000 complexities whether they liked it or not.So it was with a slight seismic shift that Cirrus announced this week at EBACE that it will offer a version of the SR22 with what Klapmier calls a Cirrusized G1000. This is not quite a clean-sheet rethinking of the G1000, but its a large enough leap to represent a glimpse of what the second-gen G1000 could be. Strike that: what the second-gen technologically advanced airplane (TAA) should be.The Cirrus version of the G1000 will be offered in a new model of the SR22 called the Cirrus Perspective, which, in addition to the Garmin EFIS, also sports some airframe additions such as improved environmental controls, a revised electrical system, a CO detector and a new exterior color scheme. But the real centerpiece is the G1000 in the mode of What Cirrus Wrought. It will be interesting to see how new owners warm up to this product, but for the time being, here are my impressions of it from a brief demo flight in frosty Duluth two weeks ago.First, the displays are larger-12 inches versus 10 inches for the first-gen G1000. Second, the new EFIS has Garmins fabulous synthetic vision, including a flight path indicator that graphically depicts where the airplane is going, regardless of where the nose is pointing. Very handy. At Cirruss behest, Garmin has also made some changes in display layout and symbology.In our pre-flight briefing with Ian Bentley at Cirrus, he put his finger on something I never liked about the G1000. Its a busy thing to deal with and the fact that its so far away from the pilot in the Cirrus, given the spacious cockpit, theres a long reach to twiddle the G1000s keys and knobs-and you have to do a lot of that. Again, for me, more work than its worth.The Cirrus solution for the Perspective is an alphanumeric keypad mounted on the pedestal, along with about half of the G1000s concentric/push knobs. This means the critical controls are readily at hand, the reach is shorter and the entire affair feels more integrated. And speaking of integration, the Perspectives autopilot control is right under the keypad and is labeled lucidly with dedicated keys for rate, airspeed and pitch-priority climbs. Very capable stuff here.The neatest thing is a little blue button labeled LVL, which can best be thought of as the Cirrus Easy Button. When you push it, the autopilot drops everything and whether it was flying or not, takes over and levels the wings on the current heading. Its utterly Klapmeierian, but Cirrus says Garmin may migrate it to other airplanes. (But just so everyone knows where it came from, Cirrus will have it first.)So what have we got here? In a nutshell, the Perspective SR22 is probably the first truly no-compromise automated and integrated light aircraft built with available technology.Except for the speed Delta, its what Eclipse set out to do, but hasnt quite achieved. Its a little too soon to say if the Perspective will tamp down the G1000s hunger for pilot button mashing, but my initial flight in the airplane suggests that its easier to use, or at least more logical. In any case, the payoff is a display that doesnt just ape what a steam-gauge panel does. You actually get something for all that head work and button twiddling.The developmental project also sheds some oblique light on a peculiar problem in the avionics industry. Garmin is so dominant that its engineering culture drives basic design considerations in such an overwhelming way that OEMs seem to take products like the G1000 on face value, without any consideration of the philosophical context. But Cirrus doesnt work that way-it doesnt view itself as building just airplane, but an integrated transportation product that has a larger purpose. Because of its strong engineering bent-thats a good thing-Garmin often loses sight of the forest for the trees. In the Perspective, Cirrus has done a little selective thinning and, thus far, I like the new view.