The Collins Aerospace Perigon flight deck and the clean-sheet avionics suite built for the next generation of cockpits

Collins Aerospace’s Perigon flight deck represents the first fully clean-sheet integrated avionics suite the company has built in decades. Rather than iterating on the long-running Pro Line family, Perigon was designed from the ground up around large-format touchscreens, context-aware displays, and a simplified pilot interface — purpose-built for the next generation of business jets. Its first application will be the Cessna Citation Ascend, Textron Aviation’s new midsize jet targeting entry into service in the 2028–2029 timeframe.

Why Did Collins Start from Scratch Instead of Upgrading Pro Line?

Collins Aerospace, a division of RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies), has built avionics for decades. Their Pro Line series — from Pro Line 4 through Pro Line 21 to the current Pro Line Fusion — has been the backbone of business aviation cockpits across Citations, Challengers, Globals, and King Airs.

But each generation carried forward architecture and design assumptions from its predecessor. Pro Line Fusion, as capable as it is, was an evolution. The user interface might look modern, but the underlying architecture still reflects decisions made when the original platform was conceived. Over time, this approach accumulates legacy weight — bolted-on capabilities layered atop aging foundations.

Perigon breaks that chain. Collins went back to a blank screen and asked a fundamentally different question: what should a flight deck be if designed today with zero legacy constraints?

How Does Perigon’s Pilot Interface Differ from Current Flight Decks?

Touchscreens in the cockpit are not new. Garmin, Honeywell, and Collins themselves have offered touch capability for years. What distinguishes Perigon is its interaction model.

Most current-generation flight decks present pilots with layers of menus, pages, and sub-pages. Pilots build muscle memory for button sequences, which works but creates a steep learning curve and significant cognitive load during high-workload phases. Perigon takes a different approach with what Collins calls a simplified pilot interface. The system is context-aware — it knows whether the aircraft is on the ground, in the climb, in cruise, or on approach, and it adjusts the displayed information accordingly.

This is not the system hiding data from the pilot. All information remains accessible. What Perigon does is prioritize: the most relevant information for the current phase of flight appears front and center, while everything else is one or two touches away. Think of it as the difference between a cluttered desk where everything is visible but nothing is findable, versus an organized workspace where what you need right now is in front of you.

What Makes the Display Architecture Significant?

Perigon uses high-resolution panoramic display panels where the primary flight display and multifunction display are not separate boxes bolted into the panel. They are regions on a continuous display surface.

This enables dynamic resizing and rearrangement in real time:

Synthetic vision can expand to fill more screen area
The moving map can take over additional real estate when needed
Engine instruments can shrink to a summary strip during normal operations and expand to full detail when a parameter exceeds limits

In traditional flight decks, each display is a separate computer running its own software. That is excellent for redundancy — if one fails, the others continue operating — but it prevents displays from sharing screen space or dynamically reconfiguring. Perigon maintains full redundancy while enabling fluid layout changes that older hardware architectures simply could not support.

Why the Citation Ascend Is the Right First Platform

Textron Aviation selected Perigon for the Cessna Citation Ascend, a clean-sheet midsize jet. This pairing is deliberate. When designing a new airframe, there are no constraints from existing instrument panel cutouts or display spaces designed around different avionics.

The Ascend and Perigon were designed together from the start. Display placement, control layout, and cockpit ergonomics were optimized as a unified system rather than assembled from separate programs. This co-development approach typically produces better results than retrofitting new avionics into an airframe designed around different equipment.

How Does Perigon Fit the Business Aviation Market Shift?

The business aviation fleet is undergoing a generational transition. Many workhorse jets flying today were designed in the 1990s and early 2000s. The pilots now moving into the left seat grew up with smartphones and tablets. Their expectations for digital interfaces are fundamentally different from the generation that transitioned from steam gauges to glass cockpits.

Collins is building not just for today’s aircraft but for the pilots of the next thirty years. Perigon’s design language draws from modern consumer technology rather than traditional avionics conventions — a calculated bet on where pilot expectations are heading.

The Three-Way Battle for the Next-Generation Cockpit

The avionics market has operated in a well-defined split for years. Garmin dominates general aviation and light aircraft with the G1000, G3000, and G5000 series. Collins and Honeywell divide the large business jet and airliner segments.

The battleground is now the midsize and super-midsize jet market:

Garmin is pushing upmarket with the G5000 into larger Citations and business jets
Collins is responding with Perigon
Honeywell is entering with its Anthem flight deck

This three-way competition for the next-generation business jet cockpit ultimately benefits pilots and operators through accelerated innovation.

Connectivity as a Core Design Principle

Perigon was built with connectivity as a foundational architectural feature, not an afterthought. The system is designed to pull weather data, NOTAMs, traffic information, and terrain databases from multiple sources, transmit real-time maintenance data to the ground, and potentially receive over-the-air software updates.

This forward-looking architecture matters because the National Airspace System is evolving. FAA modernization efforts, increasing traffic density, and the eventual integration of unmanned and autonomous aircraft all demand flight decks capable of processing far more data than current systems were built to handle. An avionics suite designed in 2005 was not engineered for the data environment of 2035. Perigon is explicitly designed with that future in mind.

Will Perigon Come to Existing Aircraft?

Perigon is not a retrofit product. Pilots currently flying with Pro Line 21 or Fusion in existing Citations, King Airs, or other platforms will not see Perigon offered for their aircraft. This is a forward-looking system for new-build airframes, with the Citation Ascend as the first platform and additional new designs likely to follow.

However, the technology and design philosophy in Perigon will filter down over time. Touchscreen interfaces, context-aware displays, and simplified interaction models will influence future Collins products across the range — much as the original Pro Line’s innovations eventually appeared in smaller and simpler aircraft. Expect elements of Perigon’s design philosophy to appear broadly within five to ten years.

What to Watch as the Program Matures

Three factors will determine whether Perigon delivers on its promise:

Certification timeline. Avionics certification under Technical Standard Orders and DO standards for software and hardware assurance is among the most rigorous processes in engineering. Collins has decades of certification experience, which reduces the risk of the program stalling, but the Ascend’s 2028–2029 entry into service target sets a firm deadline.
Training model. A fundamentally different cockpit interface requires a fundamentally different training syllabus. Collins and Textron must demonstrate that transition training is manageable and that the new interface genuinely reduces workload rather than merely shifting it.
Real-world pilot feedback. An elegant interface designed in a lab faces a very different test in an airplane bouncing through turbulence at FL410 at night with an approach to minimums ahead. Operational experience will be the ultimate validation.

Key Takeaways

Perigon is Collins Aerospace’s first clean-sheet avionics suite in decades, designed with no legacy architecture from the Pro Line family
Context-aware displays automatically prioritize information based on phase of flight, reducing pilot workload without hiding data
Panoramic continuous display surfaces replace traditional separate display boxes, enabling dynamic screen layout while maintaining full redundancy
The Cessna Citation Ascend is the first platform, with entry into service targeted for 2028–2029
Perigon is a new-build system only — not available as a retrofit — but its design innovations will influence future Collins products across the market