I don’t know the price/performance CCD curve (although these things are always rapidly getting cheaper/better), and I donÂ’t know how the various CCDs perform in various fog/mist, but I suspect that even the simplest/cheapest night vision camera would be a help/comfort and avoid some accidents in low-light flying.
I’ve corrected the CCD/Camera links, and added some more.
Perhaps someone with more knowledge can comment on what would happen if the proper CCD camera was mounted on a wing and the picture fed to a MFD.
Meanwhile, if you go to the NtsbDatabase and select make:cirrus severity:fatal, you can see that now 6 of 7 Cirrus client fatal crashes were arguably low-vis CFIT.
I expect that as soon as avydine/garmin offers it, Cirrus will make TAWS and/or some enhanced low-vis lookahead a standard/required Cirrus feature, just as the parachute is, and that it will have a bigger safety impact than the parachute.
Additionally I would suggest that Weather on the MFD would be great … especially with a touchscreen MFD to zoom in on local area weather or for airport METARS.
Gordon’s idea about the Satellite EPIRB would be a great addition and tie into the safety story as well vs the ELT. It would give Cirrus something to advertise in and effort to continue building it’s reputation as the safest personal GA aircraft available in the marketplace.