US maintenance company Duncan Aviation has three Citation Excel and Citation XLS operators who have committed to the Garmin G5000 flight deck upgrade. Supplemental type certification for the G5000 avionics suite is underway at Garmin International in Olathe, Kansas, with certification targeted for late 2018/early 2019.

“With the support of valuable MRO partners like Duncan Aviation, the order backlog for the G5000 flight deck upgrade for the Citation Excel and XLS continues to grow,” says Garmin vice president of aviation sales and marketing Carl Wolf. “Having the G5000-equipped Citation XLS flight test vehicle on static display at NBAA in Orlando garnered exceptional customer interest and we are looking forward to bringing this modification to the market early next year.”

The G5000 integrated flight deck modernisation programme for the Citation Excel and Citation XLS includes a dual multi-sensor flight management system (FMS) and three high resolution 14-inch flight displays situated alongside dual touchscreen controllers. Intuitive menu structures contribute to the ease of operation and straightforward user interface that gives pilots useful information at their fingertips on weather, synthetic vision, electronic flight charts and aircraft synoptics. It will offer lower cost of operation, exceed modern airspace initiatives and solve parts obsolescence among the Citation Excel/XLS with zero-time avionics.

“Duncan Aviation is looking forward to being able to bring this upgrade to customers, and operators are expressing a lot of interest in the system,” says avionics sales representative Jeff Simmons. “We still have a limited number of early adopter deposit opportunities available through Duncan Aviation with a variety of incentives, but we encourage operators thinking about the upgrade to commit soon.”