The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently certified Mooney’s family of airplanes — the Acclaim Type S, Ovation 3 and Ovation2 GX — to use Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS)-aided navigation and Safe-Taxi.
According to Mooney...
The amended Type Certificate for the upgrade was awarded to Mooney by the FAA on April 30. WAAS and Safe-Taxi will provide additional safety and ease pilot workloads in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) or high traffic environments, both in the air and on the ground. Mooney will begin delivering aircraft with the WAAS system and the SafeTaxi software upgrade immediately.
The addition of WAAS navigation to our airplanes allows Mooney operators to take full advantage of the capabilities, accuracy, reliability and integrity of their Garmin G 1000 avionics and Global Positioning System (GPS),” noted Mooney Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dennis Ferguson. “The overall performance of Mooney airplanes permits them to be operated in the same environment as many business aircraft, especially turboprops. That’s why we have made an ongoing commitment to provide our customers with all the tools necessary to do so efficiently. That’s the reason Mooney airplanes are the only ones in their class to be approved for flight into known icing and that’s also why we made it a priority to obtain WAAS certification. We appreciate the way the FAA worked closely with us to make this happen,” he added.
WAAS uses satellite-based navigational aids for precise lateral and vertical approach guidance. It improves position accuracy from a typical 49 feet down to approximately 9 feet. With the FAA’s published LPV (lateral position with vertical guidance) approaches, operators can frequently make approaches to general aviation airports down to minimums of less than 300 feet and ¾ of a mile.
In fact, the WAAS avionics system approved for Mooney aircraft even generates a virtual glide path for more than 3,000 straight-in GPS and Area Navigation (RNAV) approaches that the aircraft’s navigation system has programmed into it. Coupled with the precision flight guidance of the Garmin GFC700 autopilot, this additional capability ranks Mooney airplanes among general aviation’s safest.
Mooney is working on a retrofit package and pricing structure for aircraft produced prior to April 30 who wish to add the capability to their airplanes. It is expected to be released during the second quarter of this year.
Source: Mooney Aircraft
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