Cirrus Aircraft has announced the availability of the Perspective ESP system, a new safety and flight stability augmentation system by Garmin that will be available on Cirrus SR-series aircraft for new orders.
The key feature of the new Perspective ESP (Electronic Stability & Protection) system is that it operates when the pilot is hand-flying when the Garmin GFC 700 autopilot has been disengaged. Perspective ESP operates in the background and if the pilot becomes incapacitated, disoriented or distracted, the system uses the digital autopilot servos and sensors to detect and help correct unsafe flight conditions. After it senses things are back to normal, it returns into the background.
“The safety benefits of Perspective ESP are profound,” Cirrus Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Pat Waddick, said. “Now with Perspective ESP, pilot workload is further reduced as you have all the power and capability to actively monitor and safeguard against unusual airspeeds and attitudes, entry into stalls/spins, or the onset of other potentially unsafe flight situations. Not only will ESP alert you to the severity of the situation, but it can also provide active feedback and ‘soft’ flight control inputs to recover the plane back to normal flight.
“We believe that Perspective ESP is not just the next safety feature and pilot benefit, but instead an enhancement as important as the game-changing whole airframe parachute system (CAPSTM) itself. That’s why we have worked closely with Garmin to be the first and to date only airplane in our class to offer it.”
Effective immediately, Perspective ESP is available - at no additional charge - on all Cirrus aircraft ordered with the Garmin GFC700 autopilot and the Cirrus Perspective by Garmin avionics suite by September 30. Final certification is currently underway with system installation via a software update anticipated later this year.
To read more about the Cirrus Perspective ESP click here.
The Cirrus SR22 Turbo GTS G3. (John Absolon)
