What's in a Garmin 1000?

Well, lots of stuff, if you consider billions of electronic imprints "stuff."  But it's amazing what you can do with those electrons.  For example, here is a graphic depiction over Google Earth of our final leg on Thursday between Council Bluffs, Iowa and JAARS at Waxhaw, North Carolina.  Each entire flight is recorded on a second-by-second basis, with over 50 parameters.  The entire route looks like a simple blue line from this perspective.  (To better see these images, click on them to get a full screen view, then click on your browser back-arrow to return to this page.)

If you zoom in, you can see the one-second samplings marked with vertical lines.  Here we're cruising past Evansville, Indiana and the Ohio River at 11,000 feet. 

This graphic only uses altitude and GPS position, but the Garmin is also continuously taking "snapshots" of things like temperature, heading, track, navigation fixes and radio frequencies selected, engine parameters, and autopilot mode. This can be data "overload" in normal circumstances, but it enables support staff to get a good look at how the aircraft, and particularly the engine, are performing. I won't even attempt to discuss the issue of pilot performance "snitching," which this will no doubt introduce. And in the unfortunate event of an incident or accident, it will provide an objective look at the flight during the critical times (provided the SD card can be retrieved afterwards).

Here you can see the approach and landing pattern we made into JAARS, recorded in minute detail.  This capability will be useable anywhere on the face of the globe.