MESSAGE BOARD

GARMIN TIPS & TRICKS: THE CAPABLE NEW GARMIN

TOUCHSCREEN NAVIGATORS

By Keith Thomassen, PhD, CFII

 

Should I upgrade to a GTN 650/750 from my trusty G530W? Many of the 100,000-plus owners of the 400/500 series of units are probably asking just that. In this article some of its major capabilities and features are described to help you make your own choice. In short, there are major improvements in what it can do and in how you execute tasks. Let’s start with important things that aren’t available in the 400/500 series.

You can put airways in flight plans. Touch the initial waypoint, choose from an airway touch list, select the airway, and choose the exit waypoint. It’s quick and obvious.

You can operate a remote transponder in all units, and operate a remote audio panel in the 725/750. IFR Charts are optional in the 725/750, either FlightCharts® from Garmin based on government NACO charts, or ChartView™ using Jeppesen charts. The charts can be displayed in split or full screen, scaled, and swiped to pan to the different areas. You can access them from many different screen pages.

Perhaps the biggest improvement is the incorporation of a complete set of flight legs. Flight plans are just a sequence of flight legs, and the unit must be able to create all of the 22 legs used for GPS plans if Procedures are to be complete. Many procedure legs are missing in the 400/500 series, including a Vector, the five heading legs, and others. In the GTN series you can create all of them, although you can’t create your own hold as in a G480 or Chelton.

The table here [Figure 1] lists the 23 legs in the ARINC 424 standards (the RF leg is only used in RNP procedures to smoothly connect two straight legs with an arc, and is not included in the GTNs). A vector leg (FM) often ends an Arrival, or is used in the initial part of a Departure and for Vector Departures. In modern navigators like the GTN series, the G480, Chelton, and the G1000 that also create a complete leg set, it’s important to understand the concept of flight legs and their associated properties.

There are two things you need to know about each of the flight legs: do they sequence automatically, and what autopilot commands are there on each of them? If you have a digital autopilot or a GPSS converter, the GTNs provide roll steering commands to the autopilot from all of them (and NAV commands to the CDI for some of them). A magnetic heading input, say from the G500 or an Aspen PFD, is required to track the five heading legs.

All flight legs in these units sequence automatically on reaching the end condition for the leg (a waypoint, intercept, altitude, DME distance, etc). Sequencing is automatic from the three altitude legs if you have a barometric altitude input. Otherwise it must be done manually. Vector legs don’t sequence automatically since they have no end, and sequencing is interrupted at the missed approach point per its certification requirements.

Another new feature is the graphical creation and editing of flight plans. This even includes complex plans with multiple airway segments, and it’s fast and easy once you get the idea. A complete explanation is in my new manual for these units. Contact me if you’re interested (thomassen@avionicswest.com).

The organization of the units and your interface to them is excellent, and several examples follow. Their defining feature is the use of screen keys that you touch to carry out various operations. That not only speeds up matters, but you have many keys on each screen and you see them all at a glance. This is a huge improvement over the menu-driven logic of the 400/500 series.

Garmin has taken full advantage of this type of interface in these units to organize everything far more efficiently. The Home page has 12 top-level items (map, flight plan, procedures, nearest, waypoint info, charts, traffic, weather, etc.) and touching one of these keys puts you into that subject. For example [Figure 2] on the Home page touch Nearest, then Airport, then select one from the list to get Info, Frequencies, WX data, Procedures, and Runways for that airport and a Preview of the airport area. It’s quick and easy. Touch any key with a frequency on it to put it in Standby.

After making a flight plan, you can Preview the flight plan list and see a scalable map that you pan by swiping. There is a similar Preview before Loading an airway.

There are a number of new features, all interesting and some atypical. When you need to select a waypoint a keyboard appears [Figure 3], and you touch letters in sequence and Enter. A Find key lets you select waypoints in a variety of ways, including by its Facility name or City. The Nearest list here can be scrolled with your finger. You can also pan the map and scroll lists by dragging a finger on them. While you can swipe a map, as on an iPad, you can’t pinch to scale it (maybe in a future software update).

An atypical feature is the modes of the OBS key, which is normally used to create an OBS course to the next GPS waypoint, announced in green below it. But unless the current leg is one of the few that end in a Fix, you can’t do that so the SUSP key replaces the OBS key [Figure 4]. This doesn’t mean sequencing is suspended (it is not). When the leg is actually suspended the key changes to UNSUSP and there is a magenta SUSP announcement below it.

A nifty feature is the quick access to your flight plan by touching the box with the current and next leg [Figure 5], bringing up your Active Plan. More generally you get to the Flight Plan function from the Home page, which then displays the Active Plan. You can make and activate Catalog plans from the menu key.

Touching a Standby NAV or COM frequency brings up a keyboard of numbers [Figure 6] to choose the frequency. Again there’s a Find key to locate Nearest or Recently used frequencies as shown here. You Enter to put it in standby, or XFER to put it in Active. You can Monitor the frequency as well. Note the unusual Filter key to get Nearest FSS or ARTCC frequencies as well as Nearest Airport frequencies.

Carrying out tasks by touching keys is very intuitive and very fast, and that is one of its major strengths. The other is the new set of capabilities it provides. Perhaps with this information you might decide to take the plunge now, before your old unit is no longer supported.

Discuss this article in the forums...