20 April 2023
Piper Aircraft is moving another step towards a greener future with the news that you can now use sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in all PA46-based M-Class aircraft.
This will be available in every country where these aircraft operate, with no change in the aircraft specification or even in the Pilot’s Operating Handbook, according to Ron Gunnarsson, VP of Sales, Marketing and Customer Support at Piper.
This announcement comes hot on the heels of another of Piper’s sustainability initiatives, a collaboration with CAE, for whose fleet of Archer TX training class aircraft an electric conversion kit was announced last year.
We also had an introduction to some new additions to the Garmin G3000 system, which will be included as standard in all new M600/SLS aircraft.
These features are designed to make flying safer by improving situational awareness, and include synthetic vision enhancements. These give the pilot a virtual external view of the aircraft – top-down on the ground (ideal when taxiing at an unfamiliar airport), which shifts to an in-flight view on take-off.
Among the software updates are the clever new 3D SafeTaxi routing assistance system (think ‘Make Approach’ in SkyDemon, but with taxi instructions), enhanced weight and balance calculator, crew-alerting system checklists for handling emergencies and a glide range ring that tells you where you could land from your present position – again, similar to the feature many pilots are familiar with from SkyDemon. Tying in with the glide range ring, you can ask it to continuously point you to your nearest airfield.
The G3000 software update also has Garmin’s new PlaneSync technology, which gives you the ability to wake up your aircraft remotely using the Garmin Pilot app. This means you can access key aircraft data, such as battery life, location and oil and fuel levels, allowing you to check up on it from home when planning a trip.
In other news from Piper, we asked, and there’s still no news on the diesel-powered Seminole DX announced at AERO Friedrichshafen in 2018. It remains in the pipeline though, so watch this space…
