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King Airs with complete glass screens while the Cessna Citation 5XX and Beechcraft Hawker communities were trying to figure out how to up- grade to ADSB and WAAS capability. For sure, the owner-f lown, single-en- gine, 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 offer- ings for the market, and the market has responded by making Garmin- equipped aircraft highly valued. So, what is the latest and greatest tech- nology 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 continu- ally 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 al- gorithm 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 ac- tivate 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 auto- pilot 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 selec- tion. For instance, the transponder will queue the emergency squawk of 7700, the appropriate frequen- cy 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 diver- sified panels. We fly everything from the G3000-equipped M600SLS with Auto-throttle/Auto-land to steam-gauge piston Malibus and ev- erything 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 simu- lated 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 be- have 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 re- actions, and downright “ham-fisted
May 2023 / TWIN & TURBINE • 5