CIRRUS PERSPECTIVE^™  by Garmin

Delivery and the Flight Home

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If you love to fly there is no bigger high than taking delivery of a new airplane. If that new airplane is a Cirrus, the experience is even more enjoyable. Since placing my order for N822TN in May I have been doing a deep dive into all of the Cirrus Perspective documentation I could find. That review is summarized here. Until I arrived in Duluth on June 17th, for my June 18th delivery I had never personally seen or flown the new Cirrus Perspective. During the 5 week period waiting for delivery I spent my time studying the Perspective Cockpit Reference Guide, the Pilot's Guide and flying the Garmin Perspective PC simulator (v9.01). That simulator is still not for sale at the Garmin store but comes with the new airplane as an inset to the paper version of the 550 page Pilot's Guide.

My delivery trip started on June 17th in San Luis Obispo.  Weather the proceeding week in Duluth had not been good, so production flight tests were running behind on new airplanes. I knew from previous experience it normally took about 48 hours after the last production flight test to prepare a new Cirrus for delivery. The last production flight test in a TN22 is a one hour run up to FL250 which requires an IFR flight plan. So without calling the factory it is not hard to know whether your new TN22 has made the last production flight test by checking FlightAware. I set up my FlightAware account to send me a text message and an email alert when my new aircraft N822TN made the run to FL250. As I was loading my "trade in airplane" N922TN at 6 am on Tuesday, June 17th for the trip to Duluth I was beginning to doubt whether N822TN was going to be ready the next day.

While sitting in the run up area at KSBP, waiting for my IFR clearance my cell phone started to vibrate with a text message announcing that N822TN was starting her trip to FL250. The ceiling at KSBP was still lifting with morning fog so I waited a bit longer till I had 500' then launched for KDLH. We settled into a comfortable cruise at 17,000' and made our way to Vernal, UT for gas. Our path took us over the highest peaks in the Sierra Nevada range but at 17,000' we cleared everything fine without a bump. Plan was to get across continental divide before the normal 11am cook off of TRW's. Based on the winds I planned to go non stop from Vernal, UT to Duluth at 17,500 with about 20 knots of wind at my back the entire way. I arrived in Duluth around 4:30 CDT with 25 gallons remaining. I just love the extra fuel in the G3.

When I arrived in Duluth I found out that N822TN delivery was delayed a day but no time lost as they moved up my transition training a day so I could still depart on Friday with my new airplane.

Cirrus Perspective Introduction - A Masterful Job of Execution

I watched the introduction of the Garmin G1000 in the Columbia aircraft as they made the transition from Avidyne. It was painful. That introduction was delayed 6 months over certification challenges while inventory built at the factory leading to the "Perfect Hail  Storm". Ultimately the entire effort let to the bankruptcy of the company. So as I placed my order for a Cirrus Perspective in early May expecting a June 18th delivery I was skeptical whether I would see a new airplane anywhere close to the date.  The certification and production issues related to the introduction of this airplane are monumental. But here I am in Duluth on June 17th with all sorts of Cirrus people terribly embarrassed about missing my delivery date by one day.  Simply amazing.

Cirrus Perspective Transition Training

I arrived in the customer lounge first thing on Wednesday morning for transition training all the time looking for a peek of my new airplane. It was carefully hidden some where while they were working on it.  The customer lounge had a new feel. English is now the minority language in that lounge. Deliveries were going on for folks from all over the world.

I had done a great deal of home schooling on Cirrus Perspective before arriving in Duluth. The UND transition training course anticipates a transition pilot who has not prepared before arriving for delivery.  I decided to dump the lesson plan and spent my transition day working IFR button pushing and muscle memory exercises. I flew a demo Perspective in the morning and then flew the new Frasca Perspective simulator in the afternoon. The new simulator still had some bugs as it was just installed a week before but it was a great place to work on "buttonalogy".  For someone coming out of 5 years flying the Avidyne PFD/MFD your entire focus is on not allowing your right hand to reach for the PFD or MFD. I developed a training rule that only allowed my left had to be used when it was needed for touching the PFD. Only routine function there is the do the "Baro" set.

Delivery Day

My new delivery time was now 10:30 am on Thursday, June 19th. I arrived at the delivery center customer lounge early. The interaction in the delivery lounge is fascinating. Airplane transactions going on everywhere. While I was talking to a couple of new owners from Brazil they rolled in N822TN into the delivery bay below the lounge. I elected to go with the older style two to "GoldMist" two tone paint package and the Ivory interior. I operate in the southwestern United States, so a dark interior without air conditioning is not comfortable.

The inspection process went smoothly. Just a few cosmetic squawks then on to the flight test. I just let the delivery pilot fly the checklist on the acceptance flight while I fiddled with the Perspective buttons. Only squawk on the flight test was a slightly high RPM at full throttle. Turbo settings were perfect.

So we took N822TN back to the delivery center to clean up the short list of items as I prepared to return the aircraft to California the next morning. I watched the final preparation work on N822TN from the second floor customer lounge which included a significant amount of activity involving the Cirrus Perspective system. I could see the panels were both in Maintenance Mode and later the MFD panel came out and it looked like a box was exchanged then it was buttoned up. The whole process seemed odd since we did not have any problems with the Garmin equipment on the flight. I went back to the hotel as the finished up on N822TN.

Back to California

The weather could not have been better for a trip from Duluth to San Luis Obispo, California on Friday morning. Typical high plains TRW's were expected all the way to the continental divide, so I was at the airport by 6 am so I could get over the Rockies before cook off time. When I arrived at the Cirrus delivery center I found that they had placed my new airplane N822TN back to back with my old airplane N922TN. What a great picture.

I loaded up N822TN with all the stuff in N922TN then took a look at the log books since there was no one around at 6 am. I wanted to see what all the fuss was around with the Perspective system the day before. There was a simple log book entry saying that the #2 GIA63W had been exchanged with a new unit.  The GIA63W is the "right brain" of the Cirrus Perspective system. It is a big box sitting behind the MFD which contains the #2 COM/NAV radios and associated logic to drive the AFCS and the panels. There are two GIA63W's in the airplane, the other unit is behind the PFD panel. So the log book entry was a clue something was wrong, but what?

Since I did not train in N822TN it only had about 5 hours total time on it as I prepared to depart Duluth. Departure from Duluth was normal climbing up to 16,500 for our flight to Rapid City, SD.  TRW's were working over South Dakota, so I immediately began to build experience with the weather display capabilities of Perspective.  The weather resources available on Perspective are awesome and intuitive.  All the XM weather products are there. The pan and zoom capability of the Garmin 396/496 is built into Perspective so you can move forward all the way across the country and zoom into local weather details. We circumnavigated a group of large TRW's to he north and landed in Rapid City.

Abnormal Procedures Training - Part 2

Had a good turn in Rapid City, then jumped in the airplane for the second leg over to Vernal, Utah. I hit BAT1 and up popped not one but two full reversionary mode screens on the Perspective system.  These screens were accompanied by a chorus of chimes alerting me to a whole series of error messages flowing out of the two alert boxes. I had no idea what was going on. I went through power cycles but no joy.

I went through an inventory of what worked. I had #1 & 2 COM, NAV and GPS. I had good AHRS and the flight director worked. I could do flight plans and direct to fine. I had full engine instrumentation. The only thing I did not have was an autopilot. Big AFCS box was lit up and the "AP" button did not work. So what should I do?

I launched for Vernal, UT hand flying the airplane. Along the way I became really familiar with all the aspects of flying the airplane in reversionary mode. It was a valuable experience. Since I had a dual reversionary mode failure everything was duplicated, including warning chimes. SVC worked fine on both panels. Except for the loss of the autopilot, it was not really any big deal.

I landed in Vernal, UT and got on the phone with Cirrus.  I gave them all the alert failure messages, but it was clear whatever had happened would not be solved by talking on the phone. The folks at Cirrus continued to work the problem as a launched from Vernal for the last leg to San Luis Obispo.

The second leg in reversionary mode became more interesting. You cannot get to the fuel page in reversionary mode, so I could not add fuel at either of my stops.  So while the fuel flow indications worked normally, once the "Gal Rem" wound down to "0" the "Gal Used" froze at the number current when "Gal Rem" hit zero.  I discovered this about an hour after it happened over central Nevada a hundred miles from no where. I had been writing down my tank turn times so I was able to recreate the current fuel remaining with pretty good precision.

Proceeded into San Luis Obispo in the middle of a record heat wave landing on the Pacific coast at 112F.  We made it home.

What's Going On?

After landing in San Luis Obispo the problem persisted on the ground. Got a message from Cirrus saying their best guess is that the "PFD Configuration Module" was bad. A new module was on the way for Saturday delivery.  Saturday morning I went out to the airplane and Perspective booted up just fine. Same Sunday morning, so I decided to go fly some instrument approaches. Everything worked great. I landed and recycled the power and back we went to reversionary mode again. So now it is clear that whatever is happening is heat related. But just placing the airplane out in the sun for an hour and heating up the glareshield Perspective would boot into reversionary mode. Leave it in the hanger cold and it started fine. Once Perspective booted normally the system worked fine until the next shutdown. So whatever is happening, it is a "boot" problem.

As you can imagine there is very little experience in the field troubleshooting Perspective. So I was beginning to wonder how we were going to get this fixed. I do have an SC on the field and just by chance we have an avionics shop with G1000 experience that was just approved by Cirrus. San Luis Avionics is right next door to the Cirrus Service Center in San Luis Obispo. I met with Don Dominguez, owner of San Luis Avionics and he agreed to start troubleshooting the airplane on Wednesday morning.

A Sharp Tool in the Shed

I have spent a lot of time hanging around airports. It takes me about 30 seconds to size up an aircraft maintenance shop. As I pulled up to San Luis Avionics it was clear this was a first class shop. Neat and clean hangar, customer lounge with coffee and everything in its place. The place just looked right. Don Dominguez had read all the email traffic from Cirrus and Garmin but I could tell he was not buying some of the ideas about what was wrong.

Airplane was cold so of course it was working fine. Hard to troubleshoot something when it is not broken. So we put the airplane out on the ramp in the sun with the doors shut an let it cook for an hour. That was all that was needed, Perspective went into reversionary mode. So Don jumped into the plane and put both panels into maintenance mode where there are pages and pages of diagnostic information. Next he placeed a call to Garmin in Olathe, KS. The call was promptly answered by someone who really understood the G1000. Don spent several minutes reading off positions setting and diagnostic readings to the technician in Olathe. The technician in Olathe simpley said to Don "There is something wrong with Pin 57 on the MFD plug".  Wow, I could not believe it. Don hung up the phone and undid the six screws holding the MFD and pulled out the big single plug on the MFD.

In a few seconds the plug was apart and the problem was clearly evident.  The wire going into pin 57 was grounded on a crimp connector. The wire insulation had been captured into the crimp in such a way that when it heated up the ground connection was lost. Pin 57 on the Perspective MFD is the pin that when it is grounded tells Perspective that the right hand panel is an MFD.  So what had been happening is that when hot, during the boot up sequence, Perspective sensed that it had 2, not 1 PFD's which was at variance with the system configuration parameters so it went into reversionary mode.

I was so impressed with the way the problem was solved. Local talent combined with an efficient and knowledgeable OEM like Garmin solved the problem. So there was no problem with the Garmin equipment, the problem was a bad wiring harness that is built by Cirrus. So back to the Cirrus delivery center on Thursday afternoon. I handed them a hot airplane which they then turned on and must have seen it boot into reversionary mode. They began troubleshooting Perspective and I would guess the system cooled enough to eliminate the problem and they thought it was fixed.

Garmin Perspective - A Professional Product

I have now had some time to poke around my new airplane and look at all the new changes. Garmin Perspective is a highly engineered professional product. Click on the images to the right. What you see are the PFD and MFD panels removed revealing the individual components of Perspective. Behind the PFD is #1 GIA63W and both AHRS. Behind the MFD is the #2 GIA63W and what I think is the engine monitoring module. Both the PFD and MFD along with associated components appear to be enclosed in a Faraday Cage. The electrical engineers will understand the significance of this feature. First class installation.

Note each cage is served by its own fan. Those fans are annunciated in case of failure in the alert boxes of Perspective.

Aft of the baggage compartment bulkhead adjacent to CAPs you will find more Perspective components. On the right side there is the transponder, XM receiver and the 406 mhz ELT. In the upper left hand corner of the picture you can see the newly relocated L3 SkyWatch box and the enlarged BAT2 below. The saddle in the middle of the picture is the attachment for the Yaw Damper, which I did not buy. Note the transponder has its own dedicated fan attached to the bulkhead in back of the transponder. Not hard to see where the extra weight with Perspective comes from. This is a very well engineered system.

No Regrets

It has been a very interesting week since taking delivery a last Thursday in Duluth. I have learned a great deal in that time. Every time I make a flight in my Perspective I learn something new. Cirrus Perspective is a professional IFR machine. Now I am going to begin training to use it in IMC conditions. As I learn more I will report on it here. But for now as an early adopter of new technology I could not be more pleased with my purchase.