Love the GTN 750

[Bob_Belville]

Monday morning I called Portland ME approach control on my cell phone after starting the engine @ KIWI (Wiscasset ME). Ceiling was 300' and Portland Approach cannot be talked to via radio on the ground.

 

I had filed KIWI CLOWW KLNS. What I got was:

 

KIWI EEN V93 SASHA V292 SAGES T295 LAAYK V93 LRP KLNS

 

It took about a minute to update the flight plan in the 750. 

 

Of course after departure along the route various ATC facilities had me cut corners by giving me dir to some waypoint beyond my next fix. With the 750 it's a matter of hitting the dir button, select fltplan and find the new fix. A thing of beauty, particularly when alone.

 

Interestingly, while the New England area tend to default to Victor airways, my next leg Monday which was from KLNS to KMRN is more typical of ATC preferences in our area. I was given KLNS HAR HGR MRB LYH KMRN. No airways. ( I got no where near HAR which was in the opposite direction, as soon as I was in radar contact I was given dir HGR.)

[chrisk]

I have a GTN650.  It's wonderful until I visit the flight simulator to brush up on some items.  The 650/750 are reasonably intuitive.  The simulators 430 is not.

[ArtVandelay]

Down south we have a lot of military areas, the airways keep you clear of them. ATC will generally ask if I want to go direct if they're cold. Going direct vs airways generally only saves you about 5% on longer trips so I usually file airways unless there is a big shortcut.

[Marauder]

Monday morning I called Portland ME approach control on my cell phone after starting the engine @ KIWI (Wiscasset ME). Ceiling was 300' and Portland Approach cannot be talked to via radio on the ground.

I had filed KIWI CLOWW KLNS. What I got was:

KIWI EEN V93 SASHA V292 SAGES T295 LAAYK V93 LRP KLNS

It took about a minute to update the flight plan in the 750.

Of course after departure along the route various ATC facilities had me cut corners by giving me dir to some waypoint beyond my next fix. With the 750 it's a matter of hitting the dir button, select fltplan and find the new fix. A thing of beauty, particularly when alone.

Interestingly, while the New England area tend to default to Victor airways, my next leg Monday which was from KLNS to KMRN is more typical of ATC preferences in our area. I was given KLNS HAR HGR MRB LYH KMRN. No airways. ( I got no where near HAR which was in the opposite direction, as soon as I was in radar contact I was given dir HGR.)

I can still remember your visit last year Bob and the route from Hades you got out of here. I am absolutely convinced that ATC in the northeast won't give you the same route twice. I would love to know if there is some algorithm or methodology behind how they assign them.

I fly to WNY several times each Spring/Summer. Although I like to fly the system, the out of the way routing has me flying it VFR if I can just to take some time out of the flight.

I remember one flight I accepted the "ATC Proposed" route. They gave me the route as my clearance but once I got airborne and contacted Philly approach, the controller asked me if I was on an "IFR training flight" and could I take direct to a VOR along the route.

Then there was this Pilots N Paws run out to Pittsburgh. How does this reasonable route:

Turn into this on the way back, 1 hour later?:

There has to be a secret decoder ring...

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Danb]

CHRIS ALL I KNOW IN OUR AREA YOU NEED TO FLY NORTH BEFORE SOUTH AND SOUTH BEFORE NORTH

[flyboy0681]

While the GTN is a work of art, I still don't like the idea of having to go back and insert the airways between two points. I just entered your whole route into my Garmin Pilot exactly as you had written it and it took it accepted it immediately as is. When I entered the plan into my 750 simulator I had to enter EEN then SASHA then go back and insert the airway, select V93 and exit at SASHA, so on and so forth for the rest of the trip.

 

If Garmin could allow me to enter a simple string into Pilot, why not the GTN (without having to use Connext, which I don't have)?

[Bob_Belville]

I like Fltplan.com, I get an email with expected routing before I start engine. Most of the time. But yesterday I flew from MRN to PDK and return. The second flight did not get in the system for some reason. I did not know that until I had started the plane and contacted clearance delivery for my return flight. The controller made me call FSS on my phone and refile. It was 97F as I sat on the ramp with engine running as I called on cell phone. I could have shut down and gone inside which would have taken longer and I had no desire to tempt the hotstart gods again. 

[Bob_Belville]

While the GTN is a work of art, I still don't like the idea of having to go back and insert the airways between two points. I just entered your whole route into my Garmin Pilot exactly as you had written it and it took it accepted it immediately as is. When I entered the plan into my 750 simulator I had to enter EEN then SASHA then go back and insert the airway, select V93 and exit at SASHA, so on and so forth for the rest of the trip.

 

If Garmin could allow me to enter a simple string into Pilot, why not the GTN (without having to use Connext, which I don't have)?

I enter EEN then highlight that line and select enter airway after... select the V or T airway from the pop up list and you'll be prompted to select departing fix from another pop up list. No need to type 5 letters fix name and you'll find the right fixes even if you've misspelled something scribbling clearance.

[Bob - S50]

While the GTN is a work of art, I still don't like the idea of having to go back and insert the airways between two points. I just entered your whole route into my Garmin Pilot exactly as you had written it and it took it accepted it immediately as is. When I entered the plan into my 750 simulator I had to enter EEN then SASHA then go back and insert the airway, select V93 and exit at SASHA, so on and so forth for the rest of the trip.

 

If Garmin could allow me to enter a simple string into Pilot, why not the GTN (without having to use Connext, which I don't have)?

You shouldn't need to do that.  You should be able to enter:

 

EEN

Touch EEN

Select Load Airway

Select V93

Select exit point SASHA

Select Load Airway

Select SASHA

Select Load Airway

Select V292

Select exit point SAGES

Select Load Airway

etc.

 

Not sure if you are aware or not, but sometimes there are so many airways that pass through a fix that they don't all fit on the screen.  They are listed Victor airways followed by Jet routes, all in numerical order based on the first digit of the number.  That is something like this:

 

V292

V37

V4

V593

V620

J187

J6

J87

 

Sometimes you have to scroll up or down the list to find the one you want.

 

Bob

[Bob_Belville]

You shouldn't need to do that.  You should be able to enter:

 

EEN

Touch EEN

Select Load Airway

Select V93

Select exit point SASHA

Select Load Airway

Select SASHA

Select Load Airway

Select V292

Select exit point SAGES

Select Load Airway

etc.

 

Not sure if you are aware or not, but sometimes there are so many airways that pass through a fix that they don't all fit on the screen.  They are listed Victor airways followed by Jet routes, all in numerical order based on the first digit of the number.  That is something like this:

 

V292

V37

V4

V593

V620

J187

J6

J87

 

Sometimes you have to scroll up or down the list to find the one you want.

 

Bob

Exactly. And there may so many waypoints along the airway you will scroll down to find your exit point. Really slick.

[flyboy0681]

I enter EEN then highlight that line and select enter airway after... select the V or T airway from the pop up list and you'll be prompted to select departing fix from another pop up list. No need to type 5 letters fix name and you'll find the right fixes even if you've misspelled something scribbling clearance.

 

I have a couple hundred hours behind the unit and never bothered to enter it that way. I guess my participation on this thread will pay dividends the next time I'm given a route that includes airways. Thanks!

[Bob_Belville]

I have a couple hundred hours behind the unit and never bothered to enter it that way. I guess my participation on this thread will pay dividends the next time I'm given a route that includes airways. Thanks!

I find something new and cool almost every flight! With the GDL88 if I tap on a traffic target on the 750 I get lots of details on ident, GS, Closing rate...

[Danb]

I've had so many changes in what I file on the ground and in the air, I've started to enter the complete flight plan on the iPad before I leave home, generally only load a few fixes including the destination in the G1000. Then make the changes many times direct after I'm flying ....fore flight has just made the whole system work so much easier I utilize it until the route seems set.

[Marauder]

I have a couple hundred hours behind the unit and never bothered to enter it that way. I guess my participation on this thread will pay dividends the next time I'm given a route that includes airways. Thanks!

 

Another advantage of the GTN series is the ability to drag and drop stuff. Comes in handy if you are given a waypoint inserted into your route.

[PTK]

Another advantage of the GTN series is the ability to drag and drop stuff. Comes in handy if you are given a waypoint inserted into your route.

Lest you give into the temptation to get too drag/drop happy Chris, it only applies to certain things. Like waypoints on the GTN for example!

It does NOT apply to your "women"!

You can certainly drag them around all day long, but whatever you do, please just don't drop them!

[flyboy0681]

Another GTN technique question. I flew a practice VOR approach over the weekend (KVRB Rwy 12R) and it included a 7 mile arc. I executed it well but the distance displayed was to the next waypoint and kept counting down. Although my Twist 10/Turn 10 technique worked very well, I really didn't know how far from the VOR I actually was and couldn't judge my accuracy other than staying on the magenta arc.

 

Other than setting the unit up to fly direct to the waypoint from where the arc starts, then plugging in the VOR (which would give me the true distance while flying the arc) and then loading the approach using Vectors To Final as the transition, is there a way to setup the full approach so that I can get the actual distance to the VOR?

[Bob - S50]

I once flew the VOR/DME to Olmpia, WA.  What I did was load and activate the approach from the IAF at the start of the arc.  I have our 650 set up to display desired track in the upper left corner.  I would then keep resetting the course on our HSI to match what it said was my desired course.  I then simply kept the needle centered.  Prior to the FAF I switched over to VLOC guidance.

 

I'm thinking you could also program one of the corners of your map display to show crosstrack error.  Since the GTN knows where you are supposed to be, that would tell you how many miles inside or outside of the arc you were.  Personally, I was happy if the needle was centered and I appeared to be on the magenta line.

 

When I did that, our DME was on the fritz.  I'll have to go try it again and see how it compares.

 

One thing to keep in mind.  DME shows slant range to the navaid.  GPS shows horizontal distance.  As the look angle increases, the difference becomes larger.  That is, in close and high altitude are larger errors.  Long distance and low altitude make little difference.  However, even at 3000' AGL and 7 miles away, the difference is less than 0.02 miles.

[flyboy0681]

I once flew the VOR/DME to Olmpia, WA.  What I did was load and activate the approach from the IAF at the start of the arc.  I have our 650 set up to display desired track in the upper left corner.  I would then keep resetting the course on our HSI to match what it said was my desired course.  I then simply kept the needle centered.  Prior to the FAF I switched over to VLOC guidance.

 

I'm thinking you could also program one of the corners of your map display to show crosstrack error.  Since the GTN knows where you are supposed to be, that would tell you how many miles inside or outside of the arc you were.  Personally, I was happy if the needle was centered and I appeared to be on the magenta line.

 

When I did that, our DME was on the fritz.  I'll have to go try it again and see how it compares.

 

One thing to keep in mind.  DME shows slant range to the navaid.  GPS shows horizontal distance.  As the look angle increases, the difference becomes larger.  That is, in close and high altitude are larger errors.  Long distance and low altitude make little difference.  However, even at 3000' AGL and 7 miles away, the difference is less than 0.02 miles.

 

I ran your method of changing one of the data fields through the simulator and as expected it always shows zero on the sim since it flies a perfect approach. 

 

However, while working on your suggestion I figured out how to get the actual distance from the VOR, strictly by accident. The trick is to touch the VOR on the screen, by doing so the screen goes into "Pan Mode", showing the bearing AND distance to the VOR.

[Piloto]

I just write the clearance on paper and flight direct to the first waypoint. While in flight I enter the next waypoints into the 530. It is likely as noted by others the clearance will change. 

 

José

[kmyfm20s]

You can go into the menu and select RAD/Dist data field to be displayed on the 750 screen. It will display the RAD/Dist of whatever is in your NAV 1 frequency. That way you have the information you need for your DME arch on your screen as well as giving position to controllers.

[carusoam]

Would the GTN calculate a slant range? Or is slant range going the way of the DME, ADF and Dodo?

Looking at swapping out these old tech devices, some day...

Best regards,

-a-

[Deb]

Not slant range when using GPS for calculating distance.

[flyboy0681]

You can go into the menu and select RAD/Dist data field to be displayed on the 750 screen. It will display the RAD/Dist of whatever is in your NAV 1 frequency. That way you have the information you need for your DME arch on your screen as well as giving position to controllers.

 

There is no such data field, unless it's been a recently added feature.

[pinerunner]

Reading this lovefest for the GTN 750 was me wondering.  If you're tight for cash, as I am, is it nearly as good to get the GTN 650. That's been my plan since it should be easier to free up the panel space and I'd save about $5K. Any WAAS GPS will be a fantastic improvement for me so I'm sure I'll be happy in the end.

[ArtVandelay]

Reading this lovefest for the GTN 750 was me wondering. If you're tight for cash, as I am, is it nearly as good to get the GTN 650. That's been my plan since it should be easier to free up the panel space and I'd save about $5K. Any WAAS GPS will be a fantastic improvement for me so I'm sure I'll be happy in the end.

Agreed, that was my strategy, I use my mini iPad as my MFD