Garmin unveils new GTC 580 landscape touchscreen controller

Garmin is pleased to announce a new touchscreen controller option, which serves as the interface between the pilot and G2000, G3000 and G5000 Integrated Flight Decks (IFD), while also providing Standby Flight Display (SFD) capabilities. A new, high-resolution landscape display and responsive infrared touchscreen serves as the primary point of entry, so flight plan modifications and data entry are streamlined and simplified. The GTC 580 leverages the intuitive icon-driven GTC 570 interface, providing complete fight deck management control, including flight planning, radio and audio management, weather systems control and more.

Standby Flight Display

Stand-alone Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS) and air data sensors derived from an independent source display back-up attitude information on the GTC 580, alleviating the need to install a dedicated back-up display in the panel. In addition to standby flight attitude information, the GTC 580 also displays airspeed, barometric altitude and heading information alongside attitude information on a single display. For added redundancy, primary AHRS data from the Integrated Flight Deck is sent to the GTC 580 and compared against the stand-alone AHRS and air data information. Pilots are immediately notified of any discrepancies found between the AHRS sources and can manually select standby flight mode or in the unlikely event of a PFD failure, the GTC 580 can revert to SFD mode automatically.

Intuitive Interface

Leveraging Garmin's expertise in touchscreen flight displays, the GTC 580 features a simple to use and responsive icon-driven interface on a 5.8-inch liquid crystal display (LCD). The sunlight readable high-resolution (1280 x 768) color display boasts an infrared touchscreen for faster and more responsive data entry – even with gloves. In addition to serving as a standby flight display, pilots can fully control the Integrated Flight Deck displays via the GTC 580. Complete control of the moving map and weather overlays on the PFD/MFD, management of the transponder and radio/audio controls and more, are available through the touchscreen controller. Shallow menu structures add to the simplicity of operation and ease of control of the MFD pages within the Integrated Flight Deck. Additionally, flight plan entry is quick and efficient and entering complex flight plans or last-minute flight plan reroutes is easy, allowing pilots to focus on the task at hand – flying the airplane.

Added Functionality

Support for up to four GTC 580 displays may compliment aircraft that incorporate the new controllers. Each controller can support any mode selection, including MFD control, PFD control, NAV/COMM control with a dedicated keypad, as well as SFD modes. The wide landscape display supports a QWERTY keyboard option that makes data entry familiar and more efficient. A pop-up touchpad page within the GTC 580 also gives pilots control of the map pointer on the MFD's moving map, allowing for faster and easier touchscreen identification of airspace and airport information.