AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2014 - 91

adverse conditions. When coupled with
an ADS-B receiver, the Touch can show
TIS-B traffic and subscription-free FIS-B
weather.
The Touch has a built-in angle-ofattack indicator, but its placement on
the screen makes it less helpful than a
dedicated AOA display residing atop the
glareshield in the pilot's primary field
of view.
I wondered whether turbulence would
render a large touch screen impossible to
use, but surprisingly, it's not so bad. The
worst conditions I encountered were
continuous light with occasional moderate chop, and the Touch was still plenty
usable. I'd simply anchor my hand on the
panel beside it, and then peck away.
The Touch has two concentric knobs,
and I relied on them a great deal, mostly
to shift between the "chapters"-such
as Waypoint information, Weather, and
Terrain-and to range in and out on the
Terrain page (although pinching and
zooming works here, too).
The airplane I flew has a standard,
panel-mounted com radio, and changing
frequencies was easier and more natural on the radio knobs than the Touch.
The same was true for autopilot controls.
They're easier, quicker, and somehow
more pleasing on the dedicated GMC 305
control head than the Touch screen. In the
bumps, the autopilot control head allows
the pilot to roll in climbs and descents
with a thumb wheel, and that's a real
advantage.
On the Map page, I found the Garmindeveloped moving map much easier to
read than the VFR sectionals-but they
aren't perfect. First, Garmin's Smart
Airspace feature (which hides airspace
boundaries determined not to be relevant)
nearly led to a couple of dumb moves on
my part. In airplanes such as the Carbon
Cub that can climb and descend rapidly,
airspace such as Class B and C shelves
can quickly become critical. Fortunately,
pilots can change the map setup to get
rid of Smart Airspace and show airspace
boundaries all the time.

Also, wildlife areas over which pilots
are asked to fly at least 2,000 feet agl don't
show up on the Garmin maps, and that's
a real shortcoming. I'd sure like to know
about these sensitive areas so I can more
easily avoid flying through them.
My final gripe has to do with Garmin's
logic for displaying waypoint information. I'd leave one airport on a Direct-To
path to the destination, but calling
up the waypoint information would
give me information about the place I'd
just left-not the airport I was going to.
It would be nice to have the destination information populate the Waypoint

The Terrain page gives
pilots the seemingly
magical superpower
of knowing
what's around the
next bend, or over the
next canyon wall.
screen sooner. (Pilots can get that information by dialing it in separately on the
Waypoint page.)
The G3X Touch is a powerful avionics
system that acts like a two-screen PFD/
MFD (and engine monitor), even though
it's physically just one large box.
I found it easier to use than Garmin's
FAA-certified G500/GTN 750 (and vastly
simpler than a G1000), even though it's
a fraction of the price of those systems.
Nowhere is the difference in both costs
and capabilities between FAA-certified
and Experimental avionics broader than
here. It's a shame these non-TSO systems are blocked from certified aircraft;
perhaps the ongoing rewrite of Part 23
standards will allow for wider use of such
cost-effective, safety-enhancing avionics
in the near future.
Like so many glass panels, I found the
Touch screen so intoxicating that I had

difficulty peeling my eyes away from it,
even though the scenery was some of the
most spectacular on the continent.
But the information presented on the
screen answered virtually all of my mountain-flying questions: Which way is the
wind blowing, and what speed? (Knowing
these things makes it easy to anticipate
the location of updrafts, downdrafts, and
rotors.) What's around the next bend?
How high is the next ridgeline, and am I
climbing fast enough to comfortably clear
it? What's the weather like at my destination? Is it improving or worsening?
The Touch is easy to customize to
any pilot's personal preferences. In the
mountains, and especially when landing
at uncharted strips, disabling nuisance
terrain alerts is a priority, and that task
is easily accomplished with three screen
taps (Terrain page, menu, disable alerts). I
memorized those steps because they must
be repeated on every flight.
The smudges on the screen I was concerned about do show up, but you only see
them when the unit is shut down. The
screen is so bright it simply overpowers
them. Also, the system boots up rapidly on
the ground, and in the Carbon Cub it connects the Touch to a backup battery that
keeps it going in case of an aircraft electrical system failure.
The word intuitive is overused and
abused when describing avionics. All
this stuff is learned, and no one (other
than perhaps a future software engineer) is born knowing how to make it all
work. But the Touch logic is consistent,
and it's satisfying to learn and employ
in flight. I found myself thinking about
the flying when operating my first
Touch- equipped aircraft-not the
mechanics of prying information from
the avionics.
It's hard to improve on the experience
of flying a delightful backcountry airplane
in the mountains-but the enhanced terrain, wind, and weather awareness of the
G3X Touch does just that. Touche! AOPA
EMAIL dave.hirschman@aopa.org

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - September 2014

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