Page 5 - October 23

RESSION: WOW!
Flying with Garmin’s Autothrottle and Autoland Systems
by Tom Clements
Surprised, pleased and honored were the feelings I had when I received a phone call from Garmin’s Senior Business and Commercial Aviation Sales Manager Scott Frye, inviting me to come to their headquarters in Olathe, Kansas. I’d meet with and get briefed about their new Autothrottle and Autoland systems by some of their flight test engineers and a flight test pilot, as well as fly their B200 demonstrator/test King Air. Oh yeah! Sign me up!
As of now, the Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) applies only to King Air aircraft of the 200-series that already have or will purchase the G1000 NXi system, have -42, -52 or -61 PT6 engines, 4-blade propellers, and have the electro- hydraulic landing gear system. Eventually, the system will also be approved for the model 300-series (including the B300, better known as the 350), as well as other 200s with 3- and 5-blade propellers and electro-mechanical landing gear.
Since a lot of King Airs are flown with only one pilot, incapacitation of that person can have deadly consequences. Autoland totally changes that! It is absolutely mind- blowing to read or hear about how the system works and all the actions it takes, but even more amazing to watch it happen! My hat is off to the Garmin engineers and test pilots: They seem to have hit a homerun in the design and functionality of this never-before-seen option. Of course, the need to use this system should be and will be almost non- existent. But when the pilot becomes too disabled to function, Autoland can turn a deadly tragedy into a non-event.
EAA’s AirVenture at Oshkosh was where the newest additions to the G1000 NXi were first shown to the public. But since I did not attend the Oshkosh fly-in this year, I went to Olathe instead and spent most of the day there on Friday, Aug. 25. That morning I was at their flight facility at New Century AirCenter (KIXD) where we had the preflight briefing and from which the flight demonstration took place. After lunch, I was treated to a tour of their office building and production/distribution center before catching an evening flight back to Phoenix.
As you may recall, I flew a demon- stration flight a couple of years ago experiencing the operation of the IS&S ThrustSense autothrottle sys- tem that Textron has made standard
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equipment on the King Air mod- els currently being produced: the 260 and 360. That system worked very well and was my first ever ex- posure to power levers that moved themselves! Although I had a slight concern about my right arm and hand atrophying from lack of use, I was impressed with the features it provided and came to understand what a pilot workload reduction it provided.
With FAA approval of the Garmin system, now there are two choices when it comes to autothrottles.
There is one big caveat concerning the Garmin system: The airplane must be fitted with the latest version of the G1000 NXi avionics package, since the autothrottle (AT) and Autoland (AL) features are optional add-ons to that fantastic system.
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