Garmin G500H glass panels have been installed in the Guidance Aviation helicopter fleet. Last year, the primary helicopter flight training organization with flight operations in Prescott, Arizona and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, announced their decision to upgrade their aircraft. Now, the organization’s fleet upgrade is in its final phase with all of the IFR fleet installations complete.

“Currently, we have (13) R44s in the fleet, with (2) more on the way. So as we add new R44’s, they will have the G500H glass panels installed. We also have (3) R66 turbines in the line-up, a fourth R66 arriving in February 2015, and a fifth one new from the factory in March, 2015. All of the new R66 turbines have Aspen EFD 1000H Pro/HSI glass panels. Finally, we are already initiating ADS-B compliance in our helicopters. Our ADS-B work is well ahead of the FAA’s 2020 ADS-B mandate designed to improve situational awareness and safety for pilots,” states Jason Kidd, Director of Maintenance, Guidance Aviation.

“Almost all actual instrument flying in helicopters is done in ships that have glass cockpits such as the Garmin G500H and Aspen  EFD 1000H Pro/HSI glass panels, so using this equipment for our students’ initial instrument training is a great advantage to our graduates when they get to real IFR.  The Garmin and Aspen glass panels also complement our tablet based software and the Computer Based Training we already have in place.  The great thing is that all this added together equals less in-flight time needed for our students to get ready for the instrument checkride.” states John “JJ” Johnson, Director of Academics, Guidance Aviation.

Director of Flight Operations, Guidance Aviation’s Dave Roy adds, “We have now configured our (13) helicopter flight simulators by X-Copter to represent the G500H glass panels now found in our aircraft. Our students and instructor pilots can step into a state-of-the-art helicopter flight simulator to practice their procedures and scans all while using G500H simulation. We’ve taken these aircraft upgrades and included them into our training, simulation, and course outlines.”