G1000

First flight with a G1000-equipped aircraft, a new Cessna 172. Flew from West Houston Airport (KIWS) for a little over an hour; I got familiar with the basic functionality of the G1000 pretty quickly, as I'm already somewhat familiar with the standard Garmin navigation interface, however as the G1000 is such an unbelievable system and much more complex than I have used before, it's certain that I've only scratched the surface of what it can do.

The amount of information available is simply overwhelming; when I think about it, it's actually dangerous how dependent you can become on the technology. It should be absolutely simple to fly IFR in this machine (assuming you know how to work it and the autopilot as well), however if the system fails then you'd better be ready to do some very tough flying with the backup instruments. However, when it's working, you have the feeling that there's almost no need to look out the window!

Here's just some of the information available, in addition to standard airspeed, altitude, vertical speed, turn coordination, heading (displayed in a much more accessible way than with standard instruments), and engine parameters (the graphical engine parameter display alone makes you feel like you're flying a jet), there was traffic information (relative altitude, position, heading), Nextrad satellite weather, airspace information (floors and ceilings), frequencies, of course GPS navigation, and much more. Getting into unusual attitudes prompts clear graphics displaying red arrows telling you which way to turn the aircraft to get it back right-side up and level. It was really cool as I was on downwind and a King Air was coming in on short final and I hear "traffic, traffic" from the G1000 and I can see it's position on the MFD.

I felt like I was flying a spaceship. Simply unbelievable. I can't wait to get more experience with this incredible technology.

Also, the call sign panel did NOT fall on the floor at any time during the flight :-)

I should be checking out in a G1000-equipped DA40 shortly as well.