SWEET SPOT

Fly: Piper M600/SLS Halo A well-coupled turboprop wrapped in the latest safety enhancements

- Julie Boatman

Two larger-than-life Flying covers grace the factory walls at the Piper Aircraft manufacturing facility in Vero Beach, Florida. The first, from March 2008, shows off the newly launched Piper Matrix, a nonpressurized version of the original PA-46 series made a little bit easier to manage by its relative lack of complexity, bringing a big-cabin feel to a single-engine piston airplane aimed precisely at the owner-pilot. The second, from March 2011, features a Piper Mirage looking as though it would power its way straight off the wall and through the hangar doors on the far end of the production line. The turboprop version of the Malibu, the Mirage went the other direction from the Matrix, bestowing its bigger performance numbers upon those pilots ready to step up.

Ten years later, the newest evolution of the PA-46 series— Piper’s M600/ SLS Halo—proposes to do both, delivering an envelope of protection readily managed by transitioning pilots while at the same time upping the ante in speed and payload. When the M600 update to the M500 first arrived on the scene in 2016, those dream numbers—the result of 100 more horsepower up front from a flat-rated PT6A-42A engine— really came true.

This year, with the Flying Innovation Award-winning Autoland from Garmin giving the M600 its Halo, Piper’s quest for an ever-higher level of GA safety got a serious boost. The folks at Garmin will tell you Autoland couldn’t have come to fruition without Piper, and the feeling is mutual. “The M600 SLS and its Halo Safety System with Autoland is the result of an unwavering commitment to safety as well as the desire to evolve our products based on market input,” said Piper president and CEO John Calcagno. “This standard feature brings peace of mind to pilots and their families.”

Chasing the Grail