We recently showed a piece of B-roll that shows a later-model Garmin Perspective+ equipped Cirrus on a night visual approach with a windshield full of red-over-red VASI and an approaching dark tree line underneath. There are a bunch of things going on in that six-second clip worth talking about, besides its muddy image quality that plays illusions on the dark terrain around the airplane. Just the same, it’s likely the view you’ll have approaching terrain on a dark night—mostly nothing. Link to the video, which focuses on the Cirrus IQ data logging features, at tinyurl.com/yawolh4h.
Leading the way in the night approach footage is Garmin’s visual approach guidance, which is a procedure that’s fetched from the G1000’s FMS and loaded as an approach with vertical guidance. Visual approach procedures became a standard feature in the G1000 NXi and in Garmin’s GTN-series retrofit navigators and if your data is current, you’ll find them in the database. Garmin isn’t alone with the utility. Visual approach procedures are also in the Honeywell Apex avionics in the Pilatus PC-12, and in the FMS databases in plenty of other turbines. It’s compelling automation—the autopilot flies the active procedure as it would an instrument approach, but while it does, your eyeballs need to be outside. Here’s why.