Garmin has received Federal Aviation Administration supplemental type certification for several aircraft models for the GFC 600 autopilot. The GFC 600 is said to deliver superior in-flight characteristics, self-monitoring capabilities and minimal maintenance needs when compared to older generation autopilot systems. The technology is intended for high performance piston and turbine aircraft that have a wide range of speed and performance characteristics.

The full-featured GFC 600 provides thousands of existing general aviation aircraft with a simple, light-weight, cost-effective autopilot upgrade path. It incorporates solid state attitude with robust self-monitoring capabilities to provide superior autopilot performance, greater reliability and safety benefits that are similar to the popular GFC 700 autopilot. In addition to traditional autopilot capabilities such as altitude hold, vertical speed and heading modes, the GFC 600 also includes altitude preselect, VNAV1, level mode, underspeed and overspeed protection and more. Pilots can also select, couple and fly various instrument approaches, including GPS, ILS, VOR, LOC and back course approaches when paired with a compatible GPS navigator.

As a standard feature, pilots receive Garmin Electronic Stability and Protection (ESP), which works to assist the pilot in maintaining the aircraft in a stable flight condition. ESP functions independently of the autopilot and works in the background to help pilots avoid inadvertent flight attitudes or bank angles and provides airspeed protection while the pilot is hand-flying the aircraft.