Piper Aircraft, Inc.

LAKELAND, Fla., Sun ’n Fun, April 17, 2007 — As part of its commitment to providing customers with an ever-increasing array of features and options, Piper Aircraft, Inc. today announced that Garmin’s G1000® all-glass, fully integrated avionics suite is now available as optional equipment on the Saratoga II TC and Piper 6X.

"We are fully focused on providing our customers with the best possible options technology has to offer our industry," said Piper President & CEO James K. Bass. "We have a long and valued relationship with Garmin and have been working behind the scenes to debut the G1000 in our aircraft. Now, with deployment of the G1000 in the Piper Saratoga II TC and Piper 6X, Piper is moving forward in providing our customers with more options."

"We are very pleased to be working with Piper and look forward to providing their customers with the G1000," said Gary Kelley, Garmin’s Vice President of Marketing. "The G1000 is a proven, fully integrated flightdeck with the best support network in the world. In addition, it will bring Piper customers unprecedented situational awareness and safety of flight."

The Saratoga II TC and Piper 6X currently feature Avidyne’s advanced glass avionics suite, the FlightMax Entegra Integrated Flight Deck, as standard equipment, as do the Seneca V and the Malibu Mirage and Meridian. All other Piper models offer the Avidyne system as optional equipment.

"People have asked us over the years whether we would add the G1000 to our aircraft," said Bass, "and we have had to remain tight-lipped as we worked on integration. But from the beginning, our commitment has been to provide our customers with choices. As we introduce Garmin’s G1000, more choices are now available to our customers."

Garmin’s G1000, an all-glass avionics suite for factory-new aircraft, is seamlessly integrated and makes flight information easier to scan and process. The G1000's revolutionary design brings new levels of situational awareness, simplicity and safety to the cockpit.

The G1000 puts a wealth of flight-critical data at the pilot’s fingertips, with its glass flightdeck presenting flight instrumentation, navigation, weather, terrain, traffic and engine data on large-format, high-resolution displays.

In the Saratoga II TC and Piper 6X, the G1000 is configured with two 10.4-inch XGA screens – one used as the pilot’s primary flight display (PFD) and the other as a multi-function display (MFD). The G1000 replaces traditional mechanical gyroscopic flight instruments with Garmin’s super reliable GRS77 Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS). AHRS provides accurate, digital output and referencing of aircraft position, rate, vector and acceleration data, while Mode-S transponders enable traffic information service (TIS) alerting. Full reversionary mode is available to increase redundancy and safety. Moreover, fully integrated avionics support VHF communications, VHF navigation and Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). Because the G1000 is WAAS certified, pilots are able to fly Lateral-Precision with Vertical (LPV) guidance approaches and receive GPS navigation via the WAAS. With WAAS LPV approaches, pilots will have stabilized lateral and vertical navigation and will be able to navigate as low as 200 feet above the runway end under instrument flight rules.

The G1000 seamlessly integrates built-in terrain and navigation databases with the optional TAWS-B Terrain Awareness and Warning System, which through graphical and audible terrain and obstacle alerts provides an extra margin of safety in the air. For safer arrivals and departures, optional ChartView™ — available through Jeppesen’s JeppView™ subscription service — lets pilots overlay aircraft position on the electronic approach chart to provide a visual crosscheck. Using information from the built-in terrain and U.S. obstacles databases, the G1000 displays color coding to provide graphical alerts when proximity conflicts loom ahead.

Moreover, Garmin SafeTaxi™, a built-in database of over 750 U.S. airport diagrams, provides the capability of viewing aircraft position on taxiways, and with Garmin FliteCharts™, an electronic version of the National Aeronautical Chart Office (NACO) U.S. Terminal Procedures Publication, pilots can quickly find and view all NACO Departure Procedures (DP), Standard Terminal Arrival Routes (STARs), approach charts and airport diagrams on the MFD.

With an optional subscription to XM WX Satellite Weather™ and the addition of the GDL 69A data link receiver, pilots have access to up-to-the-minute, high resolution weather for the U.S., right in the cockpit. Weather information includes NEXRAD, METARs, TAFs, Lightning and more and can be laid directly over Jeppesen and topographic map databases. XM Audio Infotainment is also available featuring 170 channels of music, news, talk, sports and information. Stormscope® and the Skywatch® traffic advisory service are also available as options.

The PA-32 is one of the most reliable platforms in current production, and with the addition of the G1000 will lead the general aviation market by providing owners with the most proven airframe coupled with more avionics choices than ever before.

"Piper remains instrumental in bringing the greatest array of new technology to our customers," said Robert Kromer, Piper’s Vice President of Sales. "Pilots of these high-performance aircraft set their expectations high, and now with either the Garmin or Avidyne integrated glass avionics systems, they have the best choice of technology available to simplify their workload with tools that allow for improved situational awareness and safety through all of their mission and flight profiles."

Piper Aircraft, Inc. is headquartered in Vero Beach, Fla. Piper’s rich legacy is born of 70 years of unparalleled history, with more than 144,000 aircraft brought to market and more than 160 models certified. Approximately 90,000 of those aircraft are still flying and being serviced and supported on every continent by Piper’s 65 service centers, 40 dealers and 2,500 field personnel.