Garmin Smart Glide

Photos courtesy of Garmin

In my 3-plus decades in aviation, there have been tremendous advancements that have made flying both safer and better. When I first learned to fly in 1990, I flew a straight-tail Cessna 172 with only a mostly-inoperative ADF for navigation. We never used headsets, instead opting to shout across the cockpit and use the ceiling-mounted speaker and a hand mike to “talk outside” the aircraft. There was no autopilot at all in that Cessna 172 but, industry-wide in single-engine airplanes, it was a rarity to see any autopilot beyond a “wing leveler” or unreliable pseudo autopilot that was more of a hazard than a benefit. Times have changed.

We’ve come a long way in aviation. Today, we not only have phenomenal noise-canceling headsets, but we have entire cabins that are noise canceled. We have GPS navigators that are incredibly intuitive and ridiculously precise, and almost all have WAAS-enabling. Autoland, Underspeed Protection, Overspeed Protection, Autothrottles, and Envelope Protection all are safety features that were only dreamed of in my early years of flying. Indeed, nothing I flew in the military or airlines compared to what we have today in general aviation’s pressurized airplanes. In the old days, when referring to a really nice GA panel, we’d say, “That airplane’s panel is almost like an airliner,” alluding to the fact that the airlines then had the “best of the best.” Today, most pressurized GA airplanes have far better avionics suites than any airliner.

Weirdly, the owner-flown pressurized community is leading the industry in avionics advancements, far ahead of the military, airline, and even over the General Aviation jet community. We were flying PA46s, TBMs, and King Airs with complete glass screens while the Cessna Citation 5XX and Beechcraft Hawker communities were trying to figure out how to upgrade to ADSB and WAAS capability. For sure, the owner-flown, single-engine, pressurized community has led the way in avionics technologies and advancements. And the reason why is Garmin decided we were worth it.

Garmin has wholly taken over the avionics market by being better. That’s not really an arguable point. They nearly have a monopoly in the avionics market, and it is not because they’ve leveraged a political position or bought up all their competitor companies. It is because they have simply come up with better offerings for the market, and the market has responded by making Garmin-equipped aircraft highly valued. So, what is the latest and greatest technology you won’t find on any airliner, fancy jet, or military cockpit? It is a technology directed explicitly at the single-engine community, and it is excellent. If you want the latest and greatest from Garmin, you must fly a single-engine airplane. Garmin’s latest and most significant offering is “Smart Glide,” a feature that helps during an engine-out scenario.

Someone at Garmin came up with the idea to combine existing features into one package to create Smart Glide. I’d love to meet that person, for they took existing data inputs and existing capabilities of the avionics suite and simply packaged those data points and capabilities into one of the best safety enhancement technologies available today.

The latest GFC series of autopilots will all hold an airspeed, the GPS units will all determine the airplane’s location in relation to nearby airports, and all GTN receivers will receive data about weather, runway length/condition, and winds aloft. What was needed was a way for the Garmin system to analyze all of that data, contrast that data against known algorithms, and determine which airport is best to fly in an engine-out scenario. With the Xi series of GPS navigators (G650i/G750i are the two most prominent navigators I’ve seen in the marketplace), Garmin makes Smart Glide available.

Garmin’s Xi navigators continually monitor weather, winds, runway length and condition, winds aloft, and a whole host of other real-time data provided by FIS-B, XM Weather, or Garmin’s own “Connext Weather,” processing that data and continually presenting the top choice in that algorithm as the best airport to use in an engine-out scenario. If the worst happened and the pilot experienced an engine failure, that pilot can activate Smart Glide by pushing the “Smart Glide Button” on the panel or holding down the Direct-to button on the navigator. When activated, Smart Glide commands the GFC autopilot to turn directly to that selected airport and pitch the airplane for a preprogrammed best-glide speed.

When you lose your engine, push the Smart Glide button. It is that simple.

And there’s more. Once Smart Glide is activated, additional data is preprogrammed for easy selection. For instance, the transponder will queue the emergency squawk of 7700, the appropriate frequency for the selected airport will be placed in standby, and the map will be programmed to show the route to the selected airport. It is all very intuitive and easy to both activate and manipulate.

As a CFI of advanced aircraft, I train in the Piper PA46 lineup and the TBM series of airplanes. About 200 pilots come to my company each year for training, which means we get to fly and train in some of the market’s most advanced and diversified panels. We fly everything from the G3000-equipped M600SLS with Auto-throttle/Auto-land to steam-gauge piston Malibus and everything in between. And, in all of those airplanes, engine-out training is paramount. Simply put, we train engine-out scenarios in every single training event, so we’ve administered thousands upon thousands of simulated engine-out scenarios, and one thing is a constant while training an engine-out scenario…stress goes way up. And when encountering lots of stress, decision-making capability goes way down, especially when the big fan upfront stops moving.

That’s right, all I have to do with most pilots is pull back the power lever or throttle, and most pilots will metaphorically “fumble the ball.” The increased stress causes anxiety, and the human brain doesn’t seem to behave optimally when all the chips are pushed to the center of the table. I’m no psychologist, so I cannot tell you why brain myopia occurs, but I can assure you it does occur. I have seen more bad decisions, poor reactions, and downright “ham-fisted buffoonery” happen when the engine goes silent. This is a sad testimony because those first few responses are critical when an engine goes silent.

A real-world engine-out scenario creates far greater anxiety than a training scenario, and the accident record of landings after an engine-out scenario in the PA46 and TBM world is not exemplary. Although you might think that the pilots in the PA46 and TBM world would be the best of the best in handling single-engine emergencies, the actual accident data shows that poor decisions made shortly after an engine failure can doom the possibility of a successful outcome. Some pilots turn the wrong way, some select inferior airports when exemplary airports are well within gliding range, and some pilots mismanage airspeed so that a successful glide to safely land at an airport is impossible.

I use several training scenarios to train engine-out landings near my home airport near Lufkin, TX (KLFK). Those scenarios usually begin with the airplane above 10,000ft MSL and many airport options within the gliding range. Some of those airports are short-runway (less than 3000ft) options with rough asphalt, and some are multiple runway airports with crash-rescue on the scene. I ensure that the location where I administer the engine failure affords many options, and sometimes the pilot chooses the lesser option. In fact, most of the time, the pilot chooses the lesser option. I can’t tell you how often a pilot chooses the “nearest airport” when a much better airport is easily within range. Or, a pilot completely disregards strong upper-level winds and cannot glide to a seemingly in-range airport, only to end up short of the runway. The decision combinations can be mind-boggling, and most minds are truly boggled in an engine-out sequence.

And then it happened. In late 2021, I started to have pilots show up to training with Smart Glide installed as part of their new panel upgrade. It changed the game. These pilots wanted to see if Smart Glide would find the runway that afforded the greatest options for safety, and Smart Glide proved its worth by repeatedly guiding the pilot in distress to the best option. The plethora of data that Smart Glide filters continually to determine the best airport is far more robust than would be available to a pilot “in the heat of the battle” when the engine goes silent. Although you are certainly the pilot-in-command while flying, the airport selected by Smart Glide is usually the correct airport to select. When the engine goes silent, a pilot needs to decide which airport to turn towards, but that pilot also needs to know what airspeed to fly. The answer is best glide speed. So, SmartGlide pitches the airplane for the preprogrammed POH-listed best glide speed.

Best glide speed is found at the bottom of the drag chart, where parasite drag and induced drag intersect. It is the speed that a pilot should initially fly in an engine-out scenario. If the airplane is flown any faster than best glide speed, parasite drag increases exponentially, and the airplane won’t glide as far. If flown any slower than best glide speed, induced drag increases exponentially, and the airplane won’t glide as far. Best glide speed is where the airplane can glide the farthest. Sort of…

To avoid getting nasty grams from any of my astute and wise readers…yes, I know that best glide is actually an angle of attack (AOA), not an airspeed. And best glide speed can change based on weight and winds. If all of our airplanes had AOAs, I’d advise flying “best lift over drag” (Best L/D) AOA instead of an airspeed. But, most pilots reading this article don’t fly airplanes with AOAs installed, so POH-published best glide speed is a good airspeed to fly. Certainly, in the “heat of the battle” after an engine out, best glide speed is an excellent speed to fly initially as you gain situational awareness. Then, you can adjust for the airspeed you desire to fly based on the conditions and configuration you are presently flying.

As you would guess, in both engine-out training and real-life engine-out scenarios, many pilots fail to fly a proper airspeed when the engine-out episode happens. Flying the wrong airspeed reduces glide distance, and that glide distance might be all the difference in determining a successful outcome. The old adage in aviation is, “There’s nothing more precious in an engine-out scenario than altitude above you and runway behind you.” When the engine goes silent, you’ll want all the energy that altitude affords you. Spend that energy wisely. Smart Glide helps you by pitching the airplane for best glide speed.

Once a pilot can glide to the selected airport and range is no longer in question, I am a huge proponent of flying a slightly faster airspeed than best glide. There are many reasons for this decision, but the biggest is safeguarding an airplane from a stall. As the earth begins to fill the windscreen, the natural tendency for every human is to pull back on the yoke. Most botched engine-out scenarios land short of the runway in a stalled condition. Almost every engine-out stall scenario ends up with a fatal accident. The point is airspeed control is critical. Don’t stall the airplane.

An airplane being operated under Smart Glide will fly directly to the airport chosen. When within 4 miles of that airport, the GTN will alert the pilot via aural and visual cues. When within 2 miles, the cues become more prominent. When this occurs, the pilot should be over the airport, and the pilot can take over and navigate the airplane to a safe landing.

The FAA is adamant about a pilot being able to spiral down from a “high key” (a position of undetermined altitude over the airport) to a “low key” (1000-1500ft abeam the runway on a left downwind) and then land the airplane. Private pilot students are appropriately trained to glide an airplane from a left downwind to a successful landing. Commercial Pilot students learn “180-degree precision approach and landing” and “steep spirals,” both maneuvers required by the Airman Certification Standards during the Commercial Pilot Practical Test. The FAA Flying Handbook teaches how to do this with precision. The FAA Glider Handbook teaches the same method. Yes…it is a tried and tested method to glide an airplane from a left downwind in an engine-out scenario. Every pilot of a single-engine airplane should be able to do this. Plus, Smart Glide navigates you to a point over the runway where the airplane can be spiraled down to a left downwind. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Smart Glide won’t fly the approach and landing, but it will put the pilot in a position where a safe landing can be made, and that is 90 percent of the battle in an engine-out landing. The engine-out landing is “for all the marbles.” There is no go-around. It is a one-shot opportunity to excel, and every single-engine airplane pilot should feel comfortable practicing the engine out landing from the left downwind. And, if your aircraft is so equipped, Smart Glide positions the airplane to give the pilot the best shot at making a safe engine out landing.

Interestingly, if you buy a brand-new airplane from Piper or Socata, Smart Glide will not be available. It seems that the logic required to process at the data rate required for Smart Glide is available in the GTNs but not in the G1000Nxi or the G3000 avionics suites. This shows that GTN-upgraded airplanes are just as, if not more capable, than brand-new airplanes. I can take an early Piper Meridian and remove the entire panel from the factory, then install a completely new GTN-based panel (G500Txi, GTN750i, GFC600) and have an extremely capable panel, as compared with a brand new M500 from Piper. Yes, the screens will be bigger in the M500, but Smart Glide will not be available in the latest airframes. Similarly, a new Socata TBM 960 will not have Smart Glide, but you can install a completely new panel in an older TBM and have an (arguably) equally robust panel.

The power of the GTN-based panels makes the older airframes extremely attractive. Autoland and Autothrottles are only available in the newest airframes, but some of the most intriguing features (like Smart Glide) are only available on the GTN-based panels.

As an instructor in pressurized, single-engine, turbine and piston airplanes, I love Smart Glide. It is a tool in the pilot’s toolbox. Smart pilots have a toolbox full of solutions to solve the worst problems that can creep up while flying. If you have an engine-out scenario, Smart Glide is one of the most effective tools ever installed on an airplane. Can you live without Smart Glide? Sure. But, if my engine fails, I want all the tools I can muster to help me get on the ground safely. My hat is off to Garmin for developing a tool that makes the single-engine community safer.