Avionics News January 2012 - 39

clude waypoints, the new plan won’t become active until you go back to the flight plan page and activate one of the edited legs. Another new feature is support for victor airway navigation – a huge boon to any pilot who gets a call from air traffic control with the ominous words “I have a revision to your route,” followed by one or more airways. In older GPS navigators, this requires the pilot to look at an en-route chart, determine what waypoints make up the assigned route, and add those to the flight plan. In the GTN series, you can simply drag

new to the system who knows it’s possible but can’t remember exactly how, practice is needed so if it happens in busy airspace with poor visibility, you are familiar with the feature. Based on experience with the simulator, I strongly recommend all operators – whether commercial or not – should be encouraged to view the instructional video, spend some time familiarizing themselves with the simulator and studying the pilot’s guide before attempting to fly with a GTN-series unit. This should minimize confusion in the air. I would then suggest practicing in the

access those through the touchscreen, as no conventional dedicated panel controls are provided. Again, the controls are intuitive once you know where to look for them (in the top section of the home page). “Of course, familiarization and training on touchscreen avionics isn’t limited to Garmin products; we expect the FAA will provide similar equipment-specific training requirements for touchscreen avionics from other vendors, including Avidyne and Aspen Avionics,” Stone said. Hopefully those vendors will follow Garmin’s good example by pro-

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:
www.faa.gov/aircraft/draft_docs/media/osr_garmin_gtn6xx7xx_fsb.doc www.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=5380 www.garmin.com/learningcenter/training/gtn/index.html

FAA OSR ON GNS-SERIES TOUCHSCREEN NAVIGATORS GARMIN GTN PC TRAINER LITE

GARMIN GTN TRAINING VIDEOS

the course line to a waypoint on the airway and pick the airway from the resulting pop-up list of options. The flight plan will now extend along the airway. But, one step remains: you must choose which waypoint to use as an exit from the airway. Again, simple once you’ve seen how to do it, and intuitive once practiced. But, for a pilot

actual airplane, in VFR conditions first, and then in simulated instrument conditions with a safety pilot or flight instructor, before attempting to fly actual approaches with a GTN. If audio panel/transponder functions are installed in a GTN-750, the pilot will need to be shown how to

viding instructional videos and PC simulators. In any case, it will behoove avionics shops to find out what training materials are available, what regulatory requirements for training apply and make sure the customer knows this before he or she shows up to fly a newly modified airplane home. q
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avionics news

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january

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http://www.faa.gov/aircraft/draft_docs/media/osr_garmin_gtn6xx7xx_fsb.doc http://www.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=5380 http://www.garmin.com/learningcenter/training/gtn/index.html

Avionics News January 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News January 2012