Piper Upgrades Avionics in Meridian Turboprop

The most significant avionics additions are to the automatic flight control system, including Garmin’s Electronic Stability Protection (ESP), underspeed protection, a level mode, coupled go-around, and expanded engagement mode.

Garmin’s ESP operates as a pilot alerting system and recovery aid that “nudges” the flight controls in the proper direction to level the airplane and correct its airspeed if the pilot hand flies into an unusual attitude or airspeed. The autopilot servos apply a force in the correcting direction that the pilot feels, but if the situation requires, can overpower.

The underspeed protection, when engaged, prevents the autopilot from stalling the airplane. If the pilot fails to add enough power, or there simply isn’t enough reserve of power to fly the selected vertical profile, the autopilot lowers the nose to prevent a stall while alerting the pilot of the need for more power.

The automatic level mode button does just what it implies: level the airplane. If the pilot becomes momentarily confused about the attitude of the airplane, or the selected autopilot mode, a press of the blue level button engages the autopilot and levels the wings with zero vertical speed.

The MD500 also has digital electronic cabin pressurization control integrated into the G1000. The system also includes a GTX 33 transponder with extended squitter that can qualify for ADS-B certification.

The MD500 delivers the same Meridian cruise performance of 260 knots and still air range can be stretched to 1,000 nm. The M500 with the many G1000 advances is priced at $2.26 million. Visit Piper.com for more details.