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SR22 G6 · Perspective+ · Rev A

Perspective+ Avionics Setup

Every setting worth changing before you fly, where to find it, and what it buys you in the air. Sit in the airplane with the master on and work down the list once — then check it again in any airplane you share.

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Menus move between software versions
If a field isn't there, your software doesn't have it — skip it rather than hunt. Configuration aid only; the full disclaimer is at the foot of the sheet.
1

Traffic Vectors

Do this one first

Traffic page → look for a VECTORS soft key. If it offers Absolute and Relative, this is the most valuable change on the whole sheet.

  • 1.Traffic Page — Vectors soft keyRelativeAbsolute vectors are white and show where the other aircraft is pointed. Relative vectors are green and show where it is going relative to you.
  • 2.Confirm the vectors are drawn greenVerifyWhite lines mean you are still on absolute. Colour is the quickest way to tell at a glance which mode you left it in.
  • 3.Set it in every airplane you flyEvery FlightIt is not a per-flight nuisance setting, but it does not always survive a different pilot's profile.
Green line over your symbol = collision course
Change heading, airspeed or altitude until it clears you by a mile. Pointing is not converging: a slower target crossing ahead of your nose can still pass behind you, and absolute vectors never show that.
2

Pilot Profiles

AUX Group · System Setup

Everything else on this sheet is stored in a pilot profile. If more than one person flies the airplane, set this up before you set anything else.

Creating a Profile

  • 1.System Setup page, AUX groupDisplay
  • 2.FMS knob — large knob to the Create fieldHighlight, Enter
  • 3.Profile name, small and large FMS knobsEnter
  • 4.Current Settings fieldEnterOr turn the small FMS knob to start from Garmin Defaults, the Default Profile, or a copy of an existing profile.
  • 5.Large FMS knob to Create and ActivateEnterCreate alone only stores it. A profile does nothing until it is the active one.
  • 6.Profile count — up to 25 availableReferenceOne per pilot, or split by mission: a VFR profile and an IFR profile for the same person is a reasonable use of two slots.
  • 7.Active profile before every flightVerify Yours
Profiles save themselves, silently
Any change you make in flight is written into the active profile — no save key, no prompt, no indication. In a shared airplane, anyone who borrows your profile can leave your map North Up. No fix in software; the defence is a profile name nobody else will pick.
3

Navigation Map — Map Settings Group

MFD

Home key — or press and hold CLR for two seconds on older units — to reach the navigation map with no flight plan beside it. Then MENU → Settings, and set the Group field to Map. Nearly everything you care about lives in this one group.

Orientation and Zoom

  • a.Map OrientationTrack Up or Heading UpNot North Up. Flying south in North Up, a target drawn to the left of your symbol is out the right window — a mental rotation you have to get right in the seconds you have to find the airplane.
  • b.North Up Above1000 NMThe map range at which it flips to North Up anyway. Setting it this high keeps track-up on every range you actually fly, and gives you a whole-country view for looking at where the weather is.
  • c.Auto ZoomOffYou change map range constantly and for reasons the algorithm cannot know. Leave the range where you put it.
  • d.Declutter / Detail levelOne Below MaximumLabelled Declutter-1 on older systems, Detail-3 on newer. It drops GPS waypoints you do not need while keeping Class B and C airspace, which the next level down removes.

Terrain and Obstacles

  • e.Terrain Display range limit1000 NMThe range above which topographic colour stops drawing. High is fine; this is a taste setting.
  • f.Topo Scale legendOffAlso taste. It costs a corner of the moving map, and what it tells you — highest and lowest elevation in view, and your altitude against them — you can usually get elsewhere.
  • g.Obstacle DataOn
  • h.Obstacle range limit20–50 NMObstacles vanish above whatever you set here, so a low setting hides them exactly when you are low. Drop to 20 NM in wind-farm country, where 50 stacks dozens of towers on top of each other.

Vectors and Rings

  • i.Track Vector60 SecondsThe cyan line off the nose. Sixty seconds is the length the base-to-final and the approach-clearance techniques in section 7 are calibrated to — change it for a specific job, then put it back.
  • j.Wind VectorOnPuts wind strength and direction in the top right of the MFD and on the PFD inset map.
  • k.Nav Range RingOnA circle around you on older software, an arc ahead of you on newer. Either way it is a measuring stick you already have.
  • l.Fuel Range RingOnTwo rings drawn from ground speed, winds aloft, fuel flow and fuel remaining: the inner one is where you reach reserve, the outer one is dry tanks.
  • m.Fuel reserve, minutes60Sets where the inner ring falls. Pick the reserve you actually intend to land with, not the legal minimum.

Arcs and Synthetic Vision

  • n.Selected Altitude ArcOnThe banana bar. In any climb or descent it marks where you will reach the altitude set on the PFD, which answers “will I be down before the next fix” without any arithmetic.
  • o.Field of ViewOffThe V of dashed lines off the nose showing what synthetic vision is evaluating. It never changes size and tells you almost nothing, so it is clutter that moves.
4

Navigation Map — Aviation Settings Group

MFD

Same menu, different group: MENU → Settings → Group → Aviation. Two settings here are worth the trip; the rest of the groups can be left alone.

  • 1.Runway ExtensionsOnDashed white extended centrelines for every runway at the active waypoint, which is usually your destination.
  • 2.Runway Extensions range limitMaximum AvailableTypically 100 NM. High enough that the lines are simply always there rather than something you have to remember to zoom in for.
  • 3.TFR dataOnYour tablet shows these too. Having them on the panel means they are still in front of you when the tablet is asleep, hot, or in the back seat.
5

Navigation Map Soft Keys

MFD · Map Opt

These are not in the Settings menu at all. From the navigation map, press the MAP OPT soft key; on older software several of them sit at the top level instead of one layer down.

Leave These Set

  • a.TrafficOnCheck it every single flight in a shared or rental airplane. It is switched off more often than you would believe, and nothing on the screen announces that it is.
  • b.NEXRADOn
  • c.Lightning (SiriusXM)On If Convective
  • d.AirwaysOffClutter on a moving map you are using to see traffic and terrain.

Terrain Shading

  • e.TopoDay UseThe graphic-relief colours: blue water, green low ground, brown high ground. Older software has Topo and Terrain as separate soft keys; newer buries both under Map Opt.
  • f.Terrain / Relative TerrainOn At NightColours ground by how far it is below you rather than by its elevation. Every night flight, without exception, unless the ground under you is genuinely flat.

Inset / Profile View

  • g.Inset → VSD (Vertical Situation Display)Off By DefaultCalled Profile on older software. It eats the bottom of the moving map, so keep it stowed and bring it up when it earns its space.
  • h.Turn it on — winds aloft in cruiseAs RequiredShows what the wind is doing at altitudes you are not at. A headwind at 6,000 can be a tailwind at 4,000, and this is the page that tells you before you descend.
  • i.Turn it on — every night descentAs RequiredWith relative terrain on, the colours along your descent path show your separation from the ground the whole way down.
  • j.Textual inset pagesKnow They ExistRarely useful, but they list projected crossing times for each fix — which turns a “cross that fix three minutes later” clearance into a power adjustment instead of mental arithmetic.
6

PFD Settings

PFD Soft Keys

Far less to change here than on the MFD, but the wind display is worth getting right before you next fly a crosswind approach.

  • 1.PFD soft key → WIND soft keySelect
  • 2.Wind option — two arrows, two numbersSelectResolves the wind into components beside the HSI: the vertical arrow's number is headwind or tailwind, the horizontal arrow's number is left or right crosswind. On final that is the number you want, already worked out.
  • 3.Synthetic VisionOn
  • 4.PathwaysOffThe moving boxes add nothing in level cruise, and because they never stop moving they train your eye to ignore motion on the PFD — which is how you miss something that actually changed.
  • 5.Flashing flight plan cursor after any editClearSame reasoning as Pathways. Anything left blinking is something your eye learns to skip.
7

Using the Settings in Flight

Reference

The settings above are only half of it. These are the techniques they exist to support — nothing to tick, just the reason the sheet is worth working through.

Start turning at six to eight miles, not when ATC calls.Watch the green relative vectors on targets that far out. Adjust course early and the conflict never develops — a side effect is that you stop getting traffic calls, because you have already solved them.
The 60-second track vector tells you when your approach clearance is coming.On the base leg to an approach, the final clearance usually arrives when the track vector is about halfway across the final approach course. Down to twenty seconds of vector with no call means one of two things: the controller is taking you through, or the controller has forgotten you. Either is worth asking about.
The same vector calls your base-to-final turn.Once the bank is established, glance at the MFD. The curved track vector tangent to the dashed runway extension means the turn is working; crossing over the extension means you are overshooting and need more bank now, while it is still cheap. Runway extensions (section 4) have to be on for this.
Stretch the track vector to 20 minutes to skirt airspace.For threading past a restricted area VFR, lengthen the vector, then use heading mode to swing it until it falls just outside the boundary. Set it back to 60 seconds afterwards.
The nav range ring measures your downwind.Adjust map range until the ring is just tangent to the runway; the selected range is your distance out. It matters most on a circling approach, flown below pattern altitude, where the picture out the window tempts you into a downwind that is far too tight. With the newer arc, extend it in your head to the three or nine o'clock position.
Keep the destination inside the inner fuel ring.Between the rings means arriving with less than the reserve you set. Adjust power and mixture to pull the airport back inside; if it will not come, that is the divert decision, made an hour before it becomes urgent.
At night, never fly over yellow.Relative terrain paints red for ground above you or as little as 100 feet below, yellow for 100 to 1,000 feet below. Newer software adds green for 1,000 to 2,000 feet below and shows black only above 2,000; older software goes straight to black above 1,000. Yellow at night can be a hundred feet of clearance.
Obstacles have no alert — only a symbol.Without synthetic vision there is no aural or visual warning for an obstacle. The tower symbols on the map are the entire warning system, and they disappear above the range limit you set, so keep the map zoomed in when you are low.
8

Quick Reference

Colours and Values

Relative Terrain Colours

RedAbove you to 100 ft below
Yellow100–1000 ft below
Green (newer software)1000–2000 ft below
Black (newer software)More than 2000 ft below
Black (older software)More than 1000 ft below

Traffic Vector Colours

White lineAbsolute — where it points
Green lineRelative — where it goes
Green line over your symbolCollision course
Target separation to aim for1 NM or more

Values Set on This Sheet

Track vector60 sec
North Up Above1000 NM
Obstacle range limit20–50 NM
Runway extension range100 NM
Fuel reserve60 min
Pilot profiles available25

Where Things Live

Map settingsMENU, Settings, Map
Runway extensions, TFRsMENU, Settings, Aviation
Traffic, terrain, NEXRADMap Opt soft key
Wind display formatPFD, Wind soft key
Pilot profilesAUX, System Setup

Source. The settings and techniques on this sheet are drawn from Max Trescott's walkthrough of Garmin Perspective and Perspective+ configuration on the Aviation News Talk podcast. The wording here is our own; the judgement about what to set and why is his, and the episode is worth listening to in full. Much of it applies equally to the G1000, the GTN 650 and 750, and the GNS 430 and 530. Kneeboard Pro is not affiliated with Aviation News Talk, Garmin, or Cirrus Aircraft. Menu paths and available options vary by software version — verify against the Garmin Pilot's Guide and the POH for your airplane. This is a configuration aid for pilot education and does not supersede any manual or regulation.