Plastic Pilot

Once again, Garmin announced a spectacular improvement to its already spectacular G1000 integrated avionics suite: synthetic vision ! This new enhancement uses a terrain and obstacles database to display a 3D representation of what the pilot would see if he looked outside.

This will greatly improve situational awareness, particularly in marginal VFR conditions. If everything is going well, IFR pilots should not require it, but it can nevertheless be of great help. I remember some non-precision approaches with cross-wind in bad visibility where finding the runway was not that easy.

Synthetic vision won’t replace any approach guidance, but knowing exactly where to look out for a runway can make the difference between landing and go-around. The Highway In The Sky (HITS) display mode shows the path to be flown using rectangles. Fly through them, and you’ll stay on course, it’s that easy.

This system is also able to display traffic information (if available), in the form of yellow / red circles displayed at a correct point in space. I can’t recall the number of times ATC signaled me a traffic that I never saw. Here again, sythetic vision could make the difference.

I did not flew this system now, but I hope to do that as soon as it will be available. Not only it represents a step forward in safety… but it also looks so funny. And as long as pilots will remember to look outside when flying VFR, everything will be fine.

Links:

Garmin Press Release

Aero-news coverage, with several pictures

PS: Between the press release and the time this post went online, both Cessna and Diamond said they will retrofit this new feature on their G1000 equipped planes

UPDATE (10th of April): a new information from Aero-news, this time with a video ! Really impressive, but don’t fly with all the terrain in red… Here it is.