I had the wonderful opportunity to fly a C172SP with Garmin G1000 avionics for the first time yesterday, with an outfit called Lone Star Flyers, out of Addison Airport (ADS).

I came across this business searching the web for something totally unrelated, and while exploring, saw that they rent their airplanes to outsiders as long as the pilots are appropriately rated, and have a checkout flight with one of their instructors.

Given that the cost to rent their planes is about the same as what I pay at TFC, and given that Lone Star's planes are MUCH newer and better equipped, I decided I'd go ahead and take a checkride with them, if nothing else but to have a Plan B in my pocket if TFC's planes were unavailable.

One of the planes on their rental list is N18563, which has a G1000 panel.  For only $20/hr more than the standard SPs, I figured it'd be interesting to see how those avionics worked.  Plus, getting checked out in the G1000 is automatically good for checkout in the NON-G1000 planes (but, of course, not vice versa.)

So, I arranged to meet with one of their instructors at 7:30PM to get checked out.  Below are my impressions of the G1000.

We agreed that the flight should take plus under Simulated Instruments (what's the point of NOT doing that, if you expect to fly their equipment in IFR), with particular focus on using the Autopilot for the approaches, and the G1000 being just a "brief" highlight.

Before taking off, Torrey (the CFII) programmed the Integral GPS with DIRECT HQZ, and observed that the course line went through a corner of the floor of the DFW Class B.  We took off at 8:45ish, and headed EAST, hand flying to the north of the DIRECT route to avoid Class B corner.

The G1000 made this a peice of cake.  Since it knew our altitude, and given it was set to only showed the sectors of Class B that were active at our altitude, there was little involved in the navigation.  The MFD also had our heading shown using a typical HSI presentation, but also showed a nice little green dotted arrow pointing WELL off the left side of the nose, indicating our actual TRACK.  Of course, the wind was so strong (30kts) there was little doubt visually what the wind was doing, but up in the right hand corner of the screen, the actual winds were displayed!  Ordinarily, one would have to use the whiz-wheel or the GPS computer applications to calculate the winds aloft.  The G1000 does this in real time.

After a while, we were on our way direct to PQF (the NDB that represents the Initial and Final Approach Fixes for the ILS Runway 17 approach.)  All I had to do was keep the green arrow superimposed on the purple DIRECT COURSE line, and crosswinds were automatically compensated.  When we overflew the NDB, we turned outbound for the procedure turn, as the ILS Localizer display had become active.

Frequency selection was also a peice of cake.  I never mastered all the shortcut steps, but Torrey demonstrated that it took about 5 clicks and a few twirls of knobs to preload the frequencies for the CTAF and ILS into the standby frequency windows, and I then simply toggled them into the active.  All I had left to do was confirm against the approach plates that the frequencies were correct (the G1000 even decodes the IDENT for you by displaying the letters IHQZ next to the frequency!)

Once turning inbound on the procedure turn, Torrey showed me how to engage the Approach Mode of the autopilot (Altitude-> ARM.   Heading Mode->ACTIVATE.  Approach Mode->ARM) then took my hands and feet off the controls.

On intercepting the localizer, the plane gently banked into the approach course and absolutely NAILED the intercept.  We flew for about 4 or 5 more minutes until the Glideslope Bug came active, dropped down the rail, and BLINK, the AP announciated APPROACH, the trim wheel whirred to intercept the glideslope, and all I had to do was pull the throttle back to about 1900 RPM to avoid rocketing down the approach.

The "needles," (or bugs) never left center by more than a half dot at the most.  It was an impressively accurate descent, especially considering the roiling air going through a sheer boundary (30kts aloft, 10G15 on the ground).  When reaching DA, I looked up to see we were right down the centerline.  I was told to disconnect the AP and fly the rest of the way down by hand. 

If we had executed a MISSED, I could have set the GPS and Autopilot to fly the entire missed approach procedure, including the hold.  Now, of course, the Autopilot needs guidance, so it's not going to execute the missed unaided.  The PILOT must execute the missed, load the altitude and heading for the initial segments to get to the safe turning altitude, before engaging the GPS tracking, but it's still quite a burden saver.

On the way down, we got a TRAFFIC ALERT from the TCAS.  Another pilot was in the vicinity, and we allowed ourselves to get a bit close.  Nothing dangerous, mind you, but the TCAS function the G1000 was always watching and squawked "TRAFFIC.  TRAFFIC." into the intercom.  Looking at the map, we could see where to look.

After a touch and go, we headed further out of town and did some basic airwork (as part of the checkout regime) including Slow Flight, Stalls, emergency procs, etc. etc, then headed back into Addison.

Calling approach, we asked for vectors for the ILS.  All I had to do was twist a few knobs as new vectors were assigned, and in short order, we were once again attached to the localizer and glideslope all the way to the runway, disconnecting the AP when we were about 75 feet above the deck.

So, impressions flying IFR:  Piece of cake.  The information you get from the "Six Pack" are all there, and in a much more condensed area of space.  This makes scanning a dream, with less fatigue since ones eyes don't have to cover so much real-estate.  The instruments, being INSTANT reacting, can be a bit dodgy.  I found myself fighting the airspeed tape early on because the gusts were obvious.  All the other basics were intuitive.

The NAVIGATION was slightly more complex than just looking at two CDIs and a pair of needles, but not much more so.  I couldn't figure out if it was possible to view BOTH CDIs simultaneously, or just one.

All in all, it was awesome.  I can't wait to get more time in this plane.