I am not, and will probably never be in the "New" market.
Different type of people. Different approach.
I think that for those people, gimmicks like this will be important. One of the reason that Cirrus has been so successful. Different audience. "Cup holder customers."

The wife will be making that decision... and "He" will get the rewards of that decision..

In the immortal words of Reese Bobby:

"Hell, Ricky, I was high when I said that! That makes no sense at all! "First or last"! I mean, you could be second, third, fourth--hell, you could even be fifth!"

In the immortal words of Reese Bobby:

"Hell, Ricky, I was high when I said that! That makes no sense at all! "First or last"! I mean, you could be second, third, fourth--hell, you could even be fifth!"

(yawn).

kind of feels like Piper got two bites of the apple on this one.

The one company that’s not overjoyed by this new technology is Cirrus.

They have the same technology.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/PiGkzgfR_c0[/youtube]

Kind of a tough crowd. So let me get this straight. You have a plane that can lose its pilot. Or the pilot can just give give up, someone onboard can press a button. The plane takes over, looks at the weather, looks at the fuel on board, searches the database of nearby airports, and finds a runway that has appropriate weather and winds for precision
approach. Talks to air traffic control, activates deice anti-ice systems if needed, comforts the passengers, embarks on a precision approach controlling throttle, flaps, Gear and Then puts the plane down on centerline, brakes smoothly to a stop. Shuts down the engine, and tells the passengers how to egress the aircraft. Yawn.... really? There is not another certified aircraft in the world that can do that. Funny. The reality is that without the OEM, Garmin’s Software would be pretty useless. I do know that Piper has been working on this for a long time, and was integral to it being available for other OEMs. The technology and engineering here is pretty amazing.

Charles,

Remember how many years it took on BT for Cirrus pilots with a chute! were grudgingly accepted as real pilots? We're a conservative bunch. Personally, I don't think nose wheel pilots are real pilots. But then I'm a little hide bound myself sometimes....

Piper definitely deserves credit for being the first to certification. Piper is by far the most innovative of the legacy manufacturers (Beech, Cessna, Mooney). They continue to give Cirrus and Daher a run for their money, which is no small task. It is really disappointing how Textron is allowing their non-jet lines to die a slow death. Kudos to Piper; keep up the good work!

Cirrus has been working on this far more/longer than Piper. They were trying the certification at the same time, as a group... Things were dragging because Piper lack off autothrottle... They separated the certification, both went their separate ways, Cirrus was way closer to cert then Piper, but somehow, Piper beat them to the finish line.
It's a bad blow for Cirrus. They poured tons of money in this to be the first. They already have a plane that has accomplished over 30 autoland, unassisted....
Like usual, politics at play. It is about who you know...
Garmin is the big winner in this race. They will be able to provide that system to a lot of airframes, and it's not cheap.
Regardless, it is an amazing technology that will make flying safer.

This technology has been around since the 70’s

Kind of a tough crowd. So let me get this straight. You have a plane that can lose its pilot. Or the pilot can just give give up, someone onboard can press a button. The plane takes over, looks at the weather, looks at the fuel on board, searches the database of nearby airports, and finds a runway that has appropriate weather and winds for precision
approach. Talks to air traffic control, activates deice anti-ice systems if needed, comforts the passengers, embarks on a precision approach controlling throttle, flaps, Gear and Then puts the plane down on centerline, brakes smoothly to a stop. Shuts down the engine, and tells the passengers how to egress the aircraft. Yawn.... really? There is not another certified aircraft in the world that can do that. Funny. The reality is that without the OEM, Garmin’s Software would be pretty useless. I do know that Piper has been working on this for a long time, and was integral to it being available for other OEMs. The technology and engineering here is pretty amazing.

The technology is astounding. That piper won a paperwork race with garmin’s baby is the yawn

Still wondering what this new model is about. They did say it changes everything or some such..... Bigger engine, sure okay.

But looking at the profiles they have been flying has me wondering and guessing. Specifically descent into landing. Some variations that could be for all kinds of reasons. My latest guess is they might be working on a non-powered auto land capability. Where the pilot merely selects a "Glide to Airport" soft-key.