480 vs 430/G1000

Peter R. wrote:
"Robert M. Gary" wrote:

snip
6) I wonder what Garmin's future direction will be. They obviously
decided to base the new G1000 on the 430. Will they use the 480 code
moving forward, will they merge the code, etc???

Do you suppose the upcoming GNS430/530 WAAS upgrade will provide any of
these "neat" features now offered by the 480, such as airways and ad-hoc
holds?

As far as I know from talking to the Garmin guys at Oshkosh, the answer
is unfortunately no. There's no substantial user interface changes to
the WAAS upgrade other than what is necessary to get the WAAS to work.

Ron Natalie wrote:
As far as I know from talking to the Garmin guys at Oshkosh, the answer
is unfortunately no. There's no substantial user interface changes to
the WAAS upgrade other than what is necessary to get the WAAS to work.

Will the WAAS upgrade include vertical approach guidance? i.e. the
"improvised" GS on a step down approach.

-Robert

"Robert M. Gary" wrote:


Ron Natalie wrote:
As far as I know from talking to the Garmin guys at Oshkosh, the answer
is unfortunately no. There's no substantial user interface changes to
the WAAS upgrade other than what is necessary to get the WAAS to work.

Will the WAAS upgrade include vertical approach guidance? i.e. the
"improvised" GS on a step down approach.

-Robert

If not then there is not much point in WAAS, which was supposed to get
to CAT I.

Ron Lee

Ron Lee wrote:
"Robert M. Gary" wrote:

Will the WAAS upgrade include vertical approach guidance? i.e. the
"improvised" GS on a step down approach.

-Robert

If not then there is not much point in WAAS, which was supposed to get
to CAT I.

The mins right now on LOC approaches are lower than GPS approaches.
WAAS could enable lower mins, even if it didn't improvise a GS.

-Robert

Will the WAAS upgrade include vertical approach guidance? i.e. the
"improvised" GS on a step down approach.

Not to be the whiner of the group, especially over a great product, such as,
the 480...BUT...this reminds me of another feature sorely lacking in this
box. It offers no VFR vertical guidance as the x96's have. IOW...it won't
tell you when to start a decent at X feet per minute to arrive at Y feet
above the airport elevation, Z miles from the final destination. I know
that this is not needed in an IFR situation, but geez didn't they think the
480 would be flown by general aviation VFR occasionally?

I guess I'm disappointed because I've been wanting this unit for a while now
and always assumed that when I bought it, it would come with everything the
396 had plus the full IFR approaches, holding procedures and airways.

Kobra - in whiner mode

Kobra wrote:

I know that this is not needed in an IFR situation,

Actually this feature is very handy in IFR and I have used it with both the
B/K KLN94 and the Garmin GNS430. Consider:

"Bonanza XXX, cross 20 miles west of LOBBY at 9,000"

In the Northeast US, crossing instructions similar to that above are very
common.

--
Peter

Kobra wrote:

Not to be the whiner of the group, especially over a great product, such as,
the 480...BUT...this reminds me of another feature sorely lacking in this
box. It offers no VFR vertical guidance as the x96's have. IOW...it won't
tell you when to start a decent at X feet per minute to arrive at Y feet
above the airport elevation, Z miles from the final destination. I know
that this is not needed in an IFR situation, but geez didn't they think the
480 would be flown by general aviation VFR occasionally?

Gee, I've flown VFR for 25 years and never had to have a GPS tell me
when to descend. Besides it's pretty trivial. The box tells you
MINUTES to destination. For a 500 FPM descent just multiply the
the altitude you want to lose by 2 and start then.

5) All in all, these units are highly intuitive compared to what we
used to have. I always got a bit of anxiety when a student would call
me to fly with him and tell me he had some sort of odd King IFR GPS.
You almost couldn't fly those units w/o the manual. The Apollos were
not much better.

I do not have a 430 or a 480. I've been flying with the portables 295, 296,
396. I downloaded the 480 simulator the other day because I am thinking of
updating my panel and I think this is the unit I want. Maybe because I am
used to the interface and software of the above mentioned portables, but I
can not agree with the OP's comment that the 480 interface is intuitive.
AAMOF, I found it confusing. Granted, not as bad as the original King
GPS's, but I found myself trying to do something simple like adding and
removing the little pink guidance line. I saw it once in a menu item as
being configurable on or off, but when I tried to go back in and find it I
was left scratching my head until there was blood under my nails.

The x96's by Garmin are simple. Bring up the Map Page and press Menu. All
configurable items were there nicely organized.

I also found myself searching for a simple way to just back up one step.
Like a Quit, Back or Escape button. No such thing.

Another feature sorely missed was the ability to see Terrain color shading,
Obstacles and avoidance there of. It has no weather ability or traffic
avoidance by itself that I know of.

The 480 sim seems to only have 4 colors which brings me back to the look of
the original EGA and VGA monitors of 1985. I sure like the colors on the
396 and 496 using the same colors that the sectional use for airports,
airspace, terrain, etc.

How is it that Garmin can put all that in a tiny footprint of a 396 at a
reasonable price and the relatively large and super expensive panel-mounted
case of the 480, 430, 530 lay naked of these essential goodies and niceties?

That said, I agree that the IFR functions of the 480 are superior in all
that the other posters mentioned. I want one!! However, if I bought one
tomorrow I would be forced to:

1) spend a lot of money on the MX20 or MX200 MFD, a weather receiver and
terrain database just to get me the level of the 396
or 2) keep the 396 on the yoke to retain the features missing in the 480.
That's sad because one of the reasons I would want to the 480 was so that I
could get rid of the wires running about.

Kobra

Kobra wrote:


The 480 sim seems to only have 4 colors which brings me back to the look of
the original EGA and VGA monitors of 1985. I sure like the colors on the
396 and 496 using the same colors that the sectional use for airports,
airspace, terrain, etc.

The 480 is limitted in it's graphical display as is the 430 and 530.
The certificated units lag a bit in technology. TAll three of the
certified units predate the 396 anyhow. I don't know of any cert.
all-in-one units in the works that will give you the richness of the
handheld units on a certified box. Garmin looks like they're going
to be spinning their wheels for the next year or so doing the "glass
cockpit" retrofit (G600) and further refining the G1000.

I'm not sure I blame them. Even the MX20/200 seems to be a pretty
small niche. If the G600 were available when I did my panel last
year (and I tweaked Garmin heavily over the two years my plane was
in restoration about when something like the G1000 might be sold to
end users) I would have that rather than the 480/20 combo I have now.

1) spend a lot of money on the MX20 or MX200 MFD, a weather receiver and
terrain database just to get me the level of the 396
or 2) keep the 396 on the yoke to retain the features missing in the 480.
That's sad because one of the reasons I would want to the 480 was so that I
could get rid of the wires running about.

You could get the panel dock for the 386/486. I've just flew a SeaBee
last weekend that had one of those. Worked pretty well it seemed
(though I was VFR and navigating by pilotage so I had no reason to use it).

Probably old news, but the 480 can "feed" flight plan info to the 396/496
series, thereby turning it into a "mini MFD"...



"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
...
Kobra wrote:


The 480 sim seems to only have 4 colors which brings me back to the look
of
the original EGA and VGA monitors of 1985. I sure like the colors on
the
396 and 496 using the same colors that the sectional use for airports,
airspace, terrain, etc.

The 480 is limitted in it's graphical display as is the 430 and 530.
The certificated units lag a bit in technology. TAll three of the
certified units predate the 396 anyhow. I don't know of any cert.
all-in-one units in the works that will give you the richness of the
handheld units on a certified box. Garmin looks like they're going
to be spinning their wheels for the next year or so doing the "glass
cockpit" retrofit (G600) and further refining the G1000.

I'm not sure I blame them. Even the MX20/200 seems to be a pretty
small niche. If the G600 were available when I did my panel last
year (and I tweaked Garmin heavily over the two years my plane was
in restoration about when something like the G1000 might be sold to
end users) I would have that rather than the 480/20 combo I have now.

1) spend a lot of money on the MX20 or MX200 MFD, a weather receiver and
terrain database just to get me the level of the 396
or 2) keep the 396 on the yoke to retain the features missing in the
480.
That's sad because one of the reasons I would want to the 480 was so
that I
could get rid of the wires running about.

You could get the panel dock for the 386/486. I've just flew a SeaBee
last weekend that had one of those. Worked pretty well it seemed
(though I was VFR and navigating by pilotage so I had no reason to use
it).