they’ve flown in one, which was true for me. I was
skeptical, having worked in the high-tech industry
for 25 years where I occasionally encountered a
new product that was a solution in search of a
problem. Until I flew a G1000-equipped aircraft in
2005, I figured that putting a computer in an
instrument panel was a waste of a good computer.
But I was wrong. ;e benefits of glass cockpits
are substantial. ;ey dramatically improve situation awareness by displaying nearby terrain,
tra;c, and weather. Scanning their instruments is
less work for the eyes, reducing pilot workload
when flying on instruments. System reliability is
also enhanced. Traditional gyros are often driven
by a vacuum pump with a lifetime of as little as
500 hours. When a pump fails, the gyros spin
down in an insidious fashion that may go undetected until it’s too late. But when failures occur in
a glass cockpit, it’s immediately obvious since a
large red X replaces a portion of the instrument
display. ;e electrical systems of glass cockpit aircraft are beefed up and always include at least one
backup battery.
The HSI’s course pointer shows the aircraft slightly right of the
localizer. The green diamond to the right of the HSI shows the
aircraft below the ILS glide slope.
The glass cockpit market is segmenting, and
solutions are now available for virtually any GA
aircraft. On the high end, Garmin recently
announced the G3000 touch screen-based glass
cockpit for the turbine market. At the opposite
end of the spectrum, Cessna ships its new
SkyCatcher light-sport aircraft with a new G300
glass panel. At EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2009,
Garmin announced the Garmin G500, a
slimmed down G1000 glass cockpit. It’s retrofittable into older aircraft and ships in new Husky
A-1C aircraft.
Knowing that the Garmin G500 sells for less
than $16,000—considerably less than the G1000,
that starts at about $44,000—I wondered what
features were sacrificed to achieve that price. To
find out, I called my friend Errol Bader at
USAERO, the Husky, Diamond, Waco, and
“It’s all right! There’s the Poly-Fiber
stamp! Go ahead and give‘er the gun!”
And the rest is history.
You don’t have to be a magician to put
the toughest, easiest-to-repair fabric
covering on your pride and joy. Just
follow the clear detailed instructions
in our entertaining manual. Before you
can say “Hocus-pocus!” you’ll have a
gorgeous covering job that you can
show off and brag about for years to
come. You don’t need a magic wand –
all you need is Poly-Fiber!
;Friendliest manual around
;Toll-free technical support
800-362-3490
polyfiber.com
information@polyfiber.com
