Sport Pilot Talk

To date, all of my training has been with the dual-screen G300. Super nice. But I was wondering what is lost with a Skycatcher equipped with only the single-screen PFD (no MFD). My reference manual (The Garmin G300 by John Dittmer) doesn't say much, except the PFD-only version gives up WX weather and XM Radio. So far, I have only used the MFD for weight and balance, tachometer, trim gauge and engine instruments all of which can be done on the PFD. No doubt the MFD is capable of a great deal more, but would I really need it or even use it? I ask because there are several Skycatchers currently available, and the PFD-only versions have much lower asking prices. So any help you can provide is appreciated.

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The major difference is that everything is jammed onto a single screen, so all the different displays are much smaller. You also need to toggle between the GPS and HSI presentations if you want to view the wind data.

Having a full screen GPS is nice, especially for the safe taxi map when you are at an unfamiliar airport with multiple runway and taxiways.

With two screens you also have some redundancy , if one screen were to fail, the remaining screen will display all info needed. For example, if the PFD failed, all the flight instruments would move to the MFD.

For day VFR flying though, a single screen is more than adequate, it's just a little nicer having the MFD. You also may want a Skycatcher with the upgraded intercom, the intercom that came standard is not very good.