Garmin Announces G3000 Suite, Aimed at Part 23 Turbines

Garmin Vice President of Marketing Gary Kelley said the engineers at Garmin have not been idle during the downturn. As proof, the company announced its latest new product, the G3000 integrated flight deck, which Kelley said, "promises to be one of the most intuitive and powerful flight deck systems ever designed for Part 23 turbine aircraft." The heart of innovation in the G3000 is the GTC 570 "vehicle management system" consisting of a 5.7-inch diagonal touchscreen controller. Mounted on the aircraft console, the controller assumes the role of flight management system - controlling radios, audio, autopilot controls, weather system management, synoptic and other systems. The display incorporates infrared touchscreen technology with audio and visual feedback as well as animation to guide pilot inputs and ultimately decrease workload. The G3000 also incorporates extra-large 14.1-inch diagonal displays for its primary flight display and multifunction display. A combination of improved LCD technology and optimized backlighting make the new screens brighter and more readable than any of their predecessors from Garmin. The G3000 includes all the features of the G1000, including synthetic vision, full reversionary capability and inflight dynamic restarts, SafeTaxi, FliteCharts and ChartView. With the G3000 there is also split-screen capability so two vertical pages may be viewed side-by-side. Garmin expects to receive FAA Technical Standard Orders (TSO) approval for the G3000 in the second half of 2011.