Garmin 300XL GPS Approach didn't arm

I was flying a practice approach today and loaded the approach (Full
approach GPS 20 at RUQ, Rowan County, NC) into my Garmin 300XL. I flew the
approach from initial fix to the final fix but the approach never armed and
consequently never activated. The approach showed as active on the route
page but the annunciator light (arm or active) never lit. The message page
said the approach was not active.
Has anyone experienced this before?

On 05/09/06 12:55, Steve S wrote:
I was flying a practice approach today and loaded the approach (Full
approach GPS 20 at RUQ, Rowan County, NC) into my Garmin 300XL. I flew the
approach from initial fix to the final fix but the approach never armed and
consequently never activated. The approach showed as active on the route
page but the annunciator light (arm or active) never lit. The message page
said the approach was not active.
Has anyone experienced this before?




During my instrument training, my CFII and I were flying into a local
non-towered airport using the Garmin GNS 430 and a GPS approach. After
passing the FAF, the unit put up a message that the approach was not
active.

We didn't know what caused it, and after thinking about it for some
time we assumed that we didn't actually "activate" the approach (this
is a separate step in the 430, don't know about your unit).

However, we were sure that we had activated it, but there you go.

Also, I've only seen it the one time, but I haven't used the 430 that
much.

--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA

The approaches should usually arm automatically.

Within 30nm and approach loaded into the database are the
triggers.

Won't go active unless a slew of conditions are
met including RAIM.

Don't know about the 300, but the 89B, same vintage,
sometimes had to be manually armed.

Never understood why that was. Would
guess that it would have to be armed 2 mi outside the
FAF for success.

Doesn't really answer your question... sorry. Bill Hale

Mark Hansen wrote:
During my instrument training, my CFII and I were flying into a local
non-towered airport using the Garmin GNS 430 and a GPS approach. After
passing the FAF, the unit put up a message that the approach was not
active.

I've seen that as well with a 430. More than once. And I think I've
even seen it in the PC simulator from Garmin's web site. But I
couldn't reproduce it. I think if you get well off course as the
needle sensitivity increases (just outside the FAF), it may bump you
off like that. But I never found an explanation for all of the cases
in which it happens.

Peter

wrote in message
oups.com...

Mark Hansen wrote:
I've seen that as well with a 430. More than once. And I think I've
even seen it in the PC simulator from Garmin's web site. But I
couldn't reproduce it. I think if you get well off course as the
needle sensitivity increases (just outside the FAF), it may bump you
off like that. But I never found an explanation for all of the cases
in which it happens.

Peter


I confirmed it wasn't a RAIM issue and I was dead on the approach course. I
even pressed the arm/actvate button but that didn't help.

Garmin says it might have to do with the setup of the unit not interfacing
with the annunciator panel. However, I'm getting the MSG light on the
annunciator panel so I don't think that is it. They are checking on that
and said they will get back to me.

Steve S wrote:
I was flying a practice approach today and loaded the approach (Full
approach GPS 20 at RUQ, Rowan County, NC) into my Garmin 300XL. I flew the
approach from initial fix to the final fix but the approach never armed and
consequently never activated. The approach showed as active on the route
page but the annunciator light (arm or active) never lit. The message page
said the approach was not active.
Has anyone experienced this before?

Just add it to the list of human/GPS interface mysteries. Undoubtedly there is
an answer to your question, but you might never figure it out. It seems with the
current crop of units you can memorize the whole user manual, play with the
simulator 'til you're blue in the face, and it can still surprise you with stuff
that doesn't work the way you think it should.

I wish they had an option to replay a sequence so you could analyze it after the
fact. Usually when stuff like this happens, I'm too busy trying to fly the plane
and get the box navigating again to do any real analysis.

I've flown the GX50, the 430, and now have the GNS480 installed. I have to say
the 480 is the most intuitive (even though the interface is highly modal) and
has produced fewer surprises than the others.

Dave

On 05/09/06 16:46, Steve S wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

Mark Hansen wrote:
I've seen that as well with a 430. More than once. And I think I've
even seen it in the PC simulator from Garmin's web site. But I
couldn't reproduce it. I think if you get well off course as the
needle sensitivity increases (just outside the FAF), it may bump you
off like that. But I never found an explanation for all of the cases
in which it happens.

Peter


I confirmed it wasn't a RAIM issue and I was dead on the approach course. I
even pressed the arm/actvate button but that didn't help.

Garmin says it might have to do with the setup of the unit not interfacing
with the annunciator panel. However, I'm getting the MSG light on the
annunciator panel so I don't think that is it. They are checking on that
and said they will get back to me.




For what it's worth, I just flew a practice GPS approach using the PC
simulator for the GNS 430. This approach required a holding pattern
procedure turn. Upon reaching the holding pattern fix, the 430 went
into SUSP mode and told me to enter the holding pattern (with the
appropriate entry pattern).

After making the turn, if I don't take the unit out of SUSP mode, then
after crossing the FAF, I get a message that the approach is not active.

If I take it out of SUSP mode during the turn, the approach executes
as expected.

My guess is this was the problem I encountered on that training flight
so long ago. It may or may not be what you saw on your 300XL.


--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA

I use the 300XL and have flown that approach but haven't seen that
before (yet). Will be looking but don't have any thoughts other than
what's been said.

Have you tried the same approach since?

Steve S wrote:
I was flying a practice approach today and loaded the approach (Full
approach GPS 20 at RUQ, Rowan County, NC) into my Garmin 300XL. I flew the
approach from initial fix to the final fix but the approach never armed and
consequently never activated. The approach showed as active on the route
page but the annunciator light (arm or active) never lit. The message page
said the approach was not active.
Has anyone experienced this before?

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
...
I use the 300XL and have flown that approach but haven't seen that before
(yet). Will be looking but don't have any thoughts other than what's been
said.

Have you tried the same approach since?

I spoke to Garmin today and they suggested that I look at the setup because
if the unit is not set up to interface with the annunciator it will not arm.
We know the wiring is good because this unit is an overhaul that replaced a
unit that did arm. This also led us to think it was a setup issue and not a
hardware issue.

I checked it today and found that there is a page in the settings called
approach and on that page is a setting called annunciator which has 2
options None/Installed. Yep, None was selected. I chose Installed and it
asked me to confirm by pressing the Arm button. I did that and it changed
to Installed.

I loaded the approach (I'm 15 miles from RUQ) and the approach armed,
problem solved.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Steve

Mark Hansen wrote:

On 05/09/06 12:55, Steve S wrote:


We didn't know what caused it, and after thinking about it for some
time we assumed that we didn't actually "activate" the approach (this
is a separate step in the 430, don't know about your unit).

However, we were sure that we had activated it, but there you go.

Also, I've only seen it the one time, but I haven't used the 430 that
much.


The 400/500 Garmins will go to approach mode 2 miles prior to the FAF
even if you fail to activate the approach. The only condition is to
have selected the approach so it's the active flight plan and you're
where you should be.

The real purpose of activating the approach in those units is to have
the unit clean up the active flight plan so the approach flight plan
overrides junk you might have not cleaned up.

Having said that, there are issues that will prevent the approach mode
from becoming active, which are independent of selecting approach
activation. Approach RAIM is sometimes the culprit, even though
prediction said it was okay. Another reason, like someone else
mentioned, it being too far offset from the final approach course.

And, high level data communications between the unit and some high-level
unit like the Sandel, can sometimes not pass muster.

I am sure there are more "stop signs" that only the Garmin engineers
understand.

The TSO C-129 model is wrapped around the final approach segment.
Garmin was very careful to impliment it conservatively.

None of this is a worry with a handheld, though. ;-)