The G1000, including associated avionics, is a complicated combination of software and hardware. This page some of the gotchas every G1000 pilot should be aware of.

Tips

• Always turn on the inset map. If one of the PFDs or MFD fail and reversionary mode is entered, there is no way to bring up the inset map later on. During these stressful circumstances, it is especially important to have situational awareness with a moving map.
• Do not rely on or expect the Emergency Descent Mode (EDM) to save you.  Since neither the Mustang nor the Phenom have autothrottles, EDM may bring you down at only 400 fpm if pilot consciousness is lost with the throttles in the normal CRUise position. See Improved Emergency Descent.

Tricks

• Pitch mode on the autopilot is underappeciated. It is the smoothest mode in turbulence. It also becomes the default mode during VNAV if an overspeed condition exists, which can occur very easily.

Annoyances

In the spirit of the O'Reilly "Annoyance" books, here are some annoying aspects of the G1000, at least on the Mustang. Some of these are feature requests, but the lack thereof is annoying.

• When viewing the flight plan on the PFD, it is not possible to change the column definitions unlike virtually every other Garmin product. Only course and distance are shown, even though on the status bar of the PFD the same information appears for the next waypoint (albeit reversed as distance / course).
• Updating the databases are a pain (see Database Update Workflow) but help should be coming, at least for the Garmin databases when a new version of the software comes out in early 2010.
• Adding airways to a flight plan is unnecessarily unintuitive. The current sequence is select either press "V" or "J" and then press "LD ARWY", then scroll to the airway number or use the Menu item of the waypoint to add an airway. It would be so much simpler and intuitive to enter "V123" or "J45" using the keypad.
• It's unclear why VNAV can only be armed within 5 minutes from Top of Descent. Why 5? Why not 30?
• There is no way to save a preset VNAV profile. On the Mustang, it always defaults to 1500 fpm, whereas it is almost always desirable to stay higher, longer with a 2500 or 3000 fpm descent profile.
• DME ARC autosequencing only happens when almost on course.
• On the Mustang (but not the Phenom 100), destination airport elevation must be set manually. Since checking this is already a pre-flight and descent checklist item, let the G1000 pre-fill it, and then have the pilot reconfirm it.
• V speeds for takeoff and landing should be calculated by the G1000, rather than a separate Windows PC Application.
• The nearest page will only display airports within 200 nm. On extended over water legs the nearest airport, whatever the distance, should be displayed.