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Diamond DA-40 with G-1000 pirep
I got a demo flight in a Diamond DA-40 equipped with the Garmin G-1000 glass
cockpit this morning. We departed IFR from Tacoma Narrows and flew west for some maneuvers. This plane was the second one out of the factory with the G-1000. I had a difficult time maintaining my altitude; the altitude and airspeed tapes just didn't seem to be in the right place for my scan. A little practice would be necessary to get proficient. I also had a hard time with the 'ball.' It is a little trapezoid on the display and I don't think it is prominent enough. Again, just something to get used to, but my trouble with controlling the plane gave me a nice case of the leans the whole time I climbed up through the layer. I was deliberately avoiding using the backup gauges, even though they are nicely placed at the top center of the panel. The panel was fairly easy to learn. The menus and knobs are classic Garmin. Anyone familiar with the 430 or 530 would feel right at home with it. I did have trouble finding volume control knobs at first. The audio outputs are wired to provide power for Sennheiser ANR headsets, but I understand you can get an adapter for other brands. Although it was very bright and sunny above the cloud layer the panel was bright and easy to read. The panel is a little dimmer when the engine is not running. With the avionics master off you still have the full panel and your COM 1 radio, so these are on even during engine start. There was no apparent lag between a change in attitude of the airplane and the display. Engine instruments are displayed on the right panel along with a high quality moving map. Other aircraft were displayed as diamonds on the right panel. If you lose the left panel then the right panel automatically displays your attitude instruments. If you lose the right panel the then the left panel automatically displays your engine instruments. If you lose your alternator the panels can be put into 'essential bus' mode, which gives them 45 minutes of life. If you lose that, then you have a lithium battery that gives you an hour and a half for your backup electric attitude indicator and a single cockpit light. The instructor in me says BWAHAHAHA! I can have fun with this! Partial panel half a dozen different ways! You can even give the instructor a panel and turn off the panel for the student. All the circuit breakers can be pulled and they are all over on the instructor's side. Take away his moving map if you think he is too dependent on it. Lots of fun stuff. Unfortunately the magnetic compass is over on the instructor's side, too. Visibility out of the cockpit was very good. The pilots sit forward of the wing and the cowling is very low. You can see both above and below you. Getting in and out of the cockpit is like climbing in and out of a Grumman, but easier because of abundant handholds that were actually built for the purpose (what a concept). The DA-40 is not a rare airplane, but for those who have not flown it I would compare handling to a Cessna 172, but performance close to a 182. Steep turns were easy, though I tended to pull up on the nose a little too much because the sight picture over the cowling was so different. Stalls were also easy. The buffet is very distinct and impossible to ignore, which is a good thing because the pilot might not know otherwise that the airplane is stalled. You still have complete aileron control, but you have a rate of descent of about 650 fpm. There is no distinct break or bobbing. It just stops flying and descends straight down out of the sky in whatever attitude you stalled. I think it would be very difficult to get one of these things to enter a spin; perhaps a skid with bottom rudder with a high angle of attack. I am told that it takes a lot of rudder to kick it into a spin, but the only way you can spin one legally is to get one of the factory reps to demonstrate it before they put the certification sticker in it (while it is still legally an experimental). All right, back to IFR. Setting up the ILS was simple. The Garmin loaded the localizer frequency into Nav1 and set the HSI to the inbound course. Hmph. You would have thought that it would have put the SEA frequency and radial for the missed approach in, too, and maybe warmed the latte in your cup holder. :-) I had better luck maintaining the localizer and glideslope than I had maintaining control when departing, but I would still need a lot of practice. The glideslope consisted of a single blue arrow on the altitude tape. I had expected a line across the screen or something, but in the end it was not that difficult to use. The G-1000 knows your wind and everything so the holding racetrack depicted on your moving map adjusts itself accordingly. Landing is a little flatter than a Cessna 172 and about five knots faster. The small flaps were surprisingly effective. The transponder, which automatically sets itself to ALT when your airspeed reaches 30 knots, shut itself off as we taxied off the runway. You can set your transponder code, radios, flight plans, and just about everything else from either the right or left panel. Again, shutting off the avionics master does not shut down the panel; the GPS, Com 1, and attitude and engine display continue to function until the master switch is turned off. Shutting down the system and restarting it in flight requires 30 seconds for the GPS to locate itself; everything else starts working instantaneously -- take that, Avidyne! My first impression is that this airplane is almost too easy to fly to be a good pilot trainer. Although the seats are not adjustable, I found them comfortable and I think it would be good for long cross country flights. Objects in the back seat are hard to reach from the front seats. I think this plane would be a superb IFR trainer because it can do nearly anything that would ever be required in an IFR environment. It has plenty of backup for any instrument failures and lots of opportunity for training scenarios. :-) The airplane I flew was loaded and costs $259,000 as equipped, including the KLN-140 autopilot with altitude hold. DA-40s with the G-1000 package start at about $229,000. The only options this plane did not have were the three bladed prop, the Stormscope, and the Garmin WX system which is not available until next month (a $6,900 upgrade). Also, the G-1000 is not yet WAAS certified, but it is supposed to be software upgradeable, unlike the 430/530 which require new clock chips. The factory will also do custom paint jobs. -- Christopher J. Campbell World Famous Flight Instructor Port Orchard, WA If you go around beating the Bush, don't complain if you rile the animals. |
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