AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2024 - 54

I engage the Garmin GFC 700 autopilot
at 3,000 feet and program it to
maintain the airplane's best-rate airspeed
of 150 KIAS at climb power. The
Epic obediently holds a roughly 3,500fpm
climb through 16,000 feet and
then smoothly levels off at 16,500 feet.
In less than two minutes of level flight,
the Epic accelerates through 300 KTAS
(or 230 KIAS).
I click off the autopilot and Blackmer
disables the Garmin ESP (electronic
stability and protection) system that constantly
monitors the airplane's speed and
attitude and keeps it within preset limits.
The Epic handles with a crisp and
satisfying mix of stability and responsiveness.
There's no apparent adverse yaw,
and pitch and roll forces are beautifully
balanced and harmonized. Steep turns
feel like cheating since holding the flightpath
marker (green dot) on the horizon
line keeps the altitude from budging-and
that's an easy task in smooth air.
Speed changes require frequent elevator
trim adjustments via an electric
switch under the pilot's left thumb. Flap
deployment is accompanied by a modest
nose-down moment at the takeoff/
approach setting and a much more significant
one when the flaps drop to the
landing position (43 degrees).
The Epic's semi-elliptical, laminar
flow wings have swept leading edges and
straight trailing edges. The airplane is
equipped with both a stick shaker that
activates at about 80 KIAS and is accompanied
by visual and aural warnings and a
stick pusher designed to prevent an aerodynamic
stall that kicks in at 70 KIAS.
54
AOPA PILOT / August 2024
The Epic handles with a crisp and satisfying mix of stability
and responsiveness. There's no apparent adverse yaw, and
pitch and roll forces are beautifully balanced and harmonized.
An angle-of-attack gauge is prominently placed in
the " wedge " -a cleverly recessed portion of the panel
atop the primary flight display that allows pilots to see
the critical information displayed there when looking
forward out the windshield.
There's no autothrottle in the Epic so it lacks a
required element of the Garmin Autoland system. An
automated emergency descent profile is built into the
autopilot, but on this flight we make it happen by hand.
The descent can be astonishingly quick. With
landing gear and flaps up, pull the throttle to idle and
pitch the nose down about 30 degrees. There are no
speed brakes to deploy. Just let the 105-inch-diameter
propeller flatten out and keep the airspeed from
exceeding the airplane's 270-KIAS maximum operating
speed while the Epic drops at 6,000 feet per
minute or more.
At 2,000 feet msl and a couple miles offshore,
we level off, reactivate the GFC 700 autopilot, and
program the G1000NXi to fly the RNAV Runway
9 approach at CGC. The descent and prelanding
checklists are logical and easy to follow, and the pilot
has plenty of time to make power and configuration
changes as the approach progresses. With the autopilot
handling the elevator trim, the airplane shows no
tendency to sink or balloon during landing gear extension
or flap deployment.
With the autopilot in Approach mode, it follows
the vertical and lateral GPS guidance to the decision
altitude while the pilot simply modulates the power
lever for the desired airspeed.
Mid-day heating makes the air choppy below 1,500
feet as I hand fly the final segment of the approach. At
Everyone boards through a
single airstair door on the left
side of the fuselage and four
club seats in the cabin offer far
more legroom than any other
airplane in its category.
AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2024

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