New avionics for Miss Maggie!

[mooneygirl]

This summer I purchased a 530W from a friend and then won an auction at EAA's Gathering of Eagles [OSH] for a GTX 335.  After I got my IFR I decided to install.  I chose Barber Aviation in Madera, CA. They quoted me a reasonable price, and best yet a 5-7 day turnaround time.  I also had a Stratus dual USB installed.  I am happy to say that it was super cool to fly Miss Maggie home yesterday with the new-to-me technology. I can recommend Chris Tharp and Barber Aviation wholeheartedly.  They have a maintenance facility and an avionics shop.

Next week will be a trip to Yuma for the Gunfighter's Formation Clinic. Life is good.  #MooneyZoom

[DonMuncy]

Way to go Jolie! I especially like your "N number plate" too.

[mooneygirl]

1 hour ago, DonMuncy said:

Way to go Jolie! I especially like your "N number plate" too.

Thank you Don.  A dear friend made it for me!

[kortopates]

First an Instrument rating and now and IFR GPS ! Way to go!!
You've probably done the BUELT Four departure many times by now, but now its going to be a snap to set up in your GPS to fly it.

Enjoy it and access to what must be 10x as many procedures with an IFR GPS. A lot to learn, but an amazing more amount of capability comes with the knowledge.

Edited January 24, 2018 by kortopates

[donkaye]

Jolie,  panel looks great.  For safety reasons, however, and because they have become so inexpensive, I wouldn't fly any serious IFR until you install a second backup attitude indicator in place of the turn coordinator.  While we train for needle, ball, and airspeed, there is now no need to put ourselves at additional risk by flying without a backup AI to use in an emergency.

[Greg Ellis]

7 hours ago, donkaye said:

Jolie,  panel looks great.  For safety reasons, however, and because they have become so inexpensive, I wouldn't fly any serious IFR until you install a second backup attitude indicator in place of the turn coordinator.  While we train for needle, ball, and airspeed, there is now no need to put ourselves at additional risk by flying without a backup AI to use in an emergency.

When I bought my Mooney 12 years ago a backup electric attitude indicator was the first thing I installed.  I have had to use it one time in 12 years and I am very glad it was there!!!

[kris_adams]

8 hours ago, donkaye said:

Jolie,  panel looks great.  For safety reasons, however, and because they have become so inexpensive, I wouldn't fly any serious IFR until you install a second backup attitude indicator in place of the turn coordinator.  While we train for needle, ball, and airspeed, there is now no need to put ourselves at additional risk by flying without a backup AI to use in an emergency.

Don, at risk of hijacking Jolie’s thread (sorry Jolie), what’s your opinion of replacing the attitude indicator with a G5 (or Dynon equivalent)? I have a similar setup as Jolie’s panel and I’m wondering if I go with a G5, should I also get a portable D2 at the same time?  I am worried about the legacy attitude indicators and want to address this next.  Thanks!

[mooneygirl]

11 hours ago, kortopates said:

 

Enjoy it and access to what must be 10x as many procedures with an IFR GPS. A lot to learn, but an amazing more amount of capability comes with the knowledge.

I am going to take a class on the 530W.I want to make sure I know it's capabilities and how to change things, on the fly so to speak.

[kortopates]

38 minutes ago, mooneygirl said:

I am going to take a class on the 530W.I want to make sure I know it's capabilities and how to change things, on the fly so to speak.

Perfect, maybe your local community college has a aviation program with pilot classes since that would be perfect (I recall it doesn't have A&P classes so not sure). I teach exactly the class for this at my local college as an advanced IFR sim lab for IR pilots using Redbirds with both legacy instruments with a GNS530W and also G1000 setups. The class is all about using the GPS for pilots in exactly your position moving to glass panels or IFR GPS's. If your local college has the equivalent that would a very inexpensive way to to learn to master the box - only 1 unit in fees which is nothing - with 16 nights of sim time. Can't beat the sim for learning new avionics and procedures.

[jaylw314]

49 minutes ago, mooneygirl said:

I am going to take a class on the 530W.I want to make sure I know it's capabilities and how to change things, on the fly so to speak.

The 530W is great.  It's a bit dated, but the functionality in such a small space always surprises me.  Look for little "gotchas" that are both good and bad so you're not surprised by them, such as--

• Get used to the D-to>ENT>ENT sequence of buttons
• If you want to skip a waypoint and fly direct-to the next one, pick the waypoint on the Flight Plan screen and press D-to>ENT>ENT.  If you want to fly he next course to a waypoint (instead of direct-to), use D-to>D-to>ENT instead.
• If you're flying to a waypoint, and want to reset your course to the waypoint from your current location, you don't need to go to the Flight Plan screen.  Just use D-to>ENT>ENT from the map screen
• No, you can't put Victor airways in your flight plan.  You do need to enter each waypoint.  Save your commonly used airways as individual flight plans, then you can add them as modules.  Alternatively, Garmin does sell a terrain card that doubles as a flight-plan card allowing you to transfer flight plans from your computer.
• If you don't have GPS steering (GPSS) to your autopilot, holding patterns with autopilot are tricky.  On the other hand, the 530W automatically times or measures the ATD for your holds, which is fantastic
• There is NO altitude data in the approach or departure procedures, so you still need your paper charts immediately available
• When you add an approach to your flight plan, just load it with your best-guess IAF waypoint.  Don't load it as vectors-to-final.  It you do happen to get VTF, it's easy to change by pressing PROC and first option is "Activate Approach VTF".  It's takes more button presses to load VTF and then change back to a waypoint IAF
• DON'T FORGET TO ACTIVATE YOUR APPROACH BEFORE YOUR APPROACH!
• and so on...  Some of this stuff I'm paraphrasing from a website somebody made
• Also, Garmin has a free G530W training simulator on their website.  It's not kept current, but it is close enough to be helpful poking around while you are on the ground.

You'll find that you will need to develop a new IFR checklist to accommodate the 530W, but it's worth it.  Practice with it for a while with a safety pilot or instructor for a while so you can figure out your own process.  Practice losing the 530W with an instructor--you are obviously used to IFR without it, but you are probably not used to losing your primary NAV radio, glideslope, COM radio, as well as the sudden loss of situational awareness all at the same time.

The first time you realize "Holy cow, I can run this approach without having to flip back and forth on two NAV radios!" will be an great day.  Good luck and have fun with it!

Edited January 24, 2018 by jaylw314

[EricJ]

11 hours ago, donkaye said:

Jolie,  panel looks great.  For safety reasons, however, and because they have become so inexpensive, I wouldn't fly any serious IFR until you install a second backup attitude indicator in place of the turn coordinator.  While we train for needle, ball, and airspeed, there is now no need to put ourselves at additional risk by flying without a backup AI to use in an emergency.

FWIW, these days a Stratux with the $15 AHRS module and a cell phone for the display makes a decent backup AI in a pinch. 

[donkaye]

5 hours ago, Kris_Adams said:

Don, at risk of hijacking Jolie’s thread (sorry Jolie), what’s your opinion of replacing the attitude indicator with a G5 (or Dynon equivalent)? I have a similar setup as Jolie’s panel and I’m wondering if I go with a G5, should I also get a portable D2 at the same time?  I am worried about the legacy attitude indicators and want to address this next.  Thanks!

The G5 can take the position of the turn coordinator very inexpensively.  I wouldn't spend the money on the D2.

[ilovecornfields]

Cuesta doesn’t really have any programs like that but Michael Phillips in CMA is a great instrument instructor and less than an hour away by Mooney.  He just got a write up in AOPA Pilot this month. He has a red bird simulator but I don’t know what kind of avionics it simulates since we just flew in my plane. You better bring your “A” game because he’ll keep failing things on you until he gets you right where he wants you to be. 

http://aviationinstruction.biz/

[mooneygirl]

3 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

The first time you realize "Holy cow, I can run this approach without having to flip back and forth on two NAV radios!" will be an great day.  Good luck and have fun with it!

Wow, thank you so much. You answered a bunch of questions I had on my initial flight with the unit.  I am fortunate in a way because I had dual KX155s, now I have one KX155 with vor/GS.  So I do have that which is very normal/natural for me. 

[mooneygirl]

I do know Michael from CMA. I am going to be using Mike Jesch, my CFII. He also does FAAST trainings on the 530, ipad etc.  Also going to do an online course with Gary Reeves.

[jaylw314]

1 hour ago, mooneygirl said:

Wow, thank you so much. You answered a bunch of questions I had on my initial flight with the unit.  I am fortunate in a way because I had dual KX155s, now I have one KX155 with vor/GS.  So I do have that which is very normal/natural for me. 

You're welcome!  I looked at your panel again, and the way the 530 is recessed in the panel, do your knuckles take a beating when you're dialing the knobs on the 530?  Sometimes your going to spin the dials really fast to get from "A" to "Z", so I was a little worried seeing that.  If so, I wonder if the tray could be modified to be flush with or proud of the left and right instrument panels...

[Hank]

4 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

do your knuckles take a beating when you're dialing the knobs on the 530?  Sometimes your going to spin the dials really fast to get from "A" to "Z"

You do realize that you can twist the knib the other way, and go from A to 9, 8, 7 . . .1, 0, Z? It's much quicker.  

[bradp]

J- having Desired Track and Current track displayed on your 530 right next to each other (some will out track error so there is less mental math) is a poor woman’s HSI.  I’ve flown like that for years with a DG/CDI and it works well.  

 

Just like with avoiding VTF for approaches, you can enter any reasonable starting fix on an approach and get the correct “entry point” by selecting the fix that defines the leg you want to fly to in the flight plan view and then menu->activate leg.  This way it will draw an intercept leg to infinity so when you do get that “5 Miles from FIXAD, fly hdg 360 cleared ILS 3 app” you just activate the fixad leg in the flight plan and intercept away.  

 

 

And just think - you’re not going to look at your new fancy stuff for one minute during the formation clinic ;-)

[gsxrpilot]

You're gonna think you died and went to heaven with a proper moving map, IFR GPS. The 530W is great. I had one in my C and again in my K before the upgrade. You'll love it.

Now, while we're all spending your money... I'd sell one of your Garmin indicators along with your DG, to easily cover the cost of an HSI in place of the DG. An HSI goes nearly as far as the GPS to making IFR simple and fun.  They can be had cheap on Barnstormers. 

[jaylw314]

13 hours ago, Hank said:

You do realize that you can twist the knib the other way, and go from A to 9, 8, 7 . . .1, 0, Z? It's much quicker.  

The annoying letters are R, S and T.  You have to twist the same distance in either direction, and they're common letters

[Jerry 5TJ]

29 minutes ago, jaylw314 said:

The annoying letters are R, S and T.  You have to twist the same distance in either direction, and they're common letters

For a mere 1 AMU more you can add a Flight Stream 210.  Then you can type waypoint names on your  tablet’s keyboard and send flight plans to the 530W via Bluetooth. Or you can edit flight plans graphically.  Either is way better than the 530W’s “twist-twist-push” data entry. 

And with the FS210 you get a “free” solid state AI to backup that spinning gyro in the panel.  

[mooneygirl]

13 hours ago, bradp said:

J- having Desired Track and Current track displayed on your 530 right next to each other (some will out track error so there is less mental math) is a poor woman’s HSI.  I’ve flown like that for years with a DG/CDI and it works well.  

 

Just like with avoiding VTF for approaches, you can enter any reasonable starting fix on an approach and get the correct “entry point” by selecting the fix that defines the leg you want to fly to in the flight plan view and then menu->activate leg.  This way it will draw an intercept leg to infinity so when you do get that “5 Miles from FIXAD, fly hdg 360 cleared ILS 3 app” you just activate the fixad leg in the flight plan and intercept away.  

 

 

And just think - you’re not going to look at your new fancy stuff for one minute during the formation clinic ;-)

Right? I will be focused on rule #1 "Don't hit lead"

I am seriously looking forward to utilizing the equipment, but I have to say for now the IR has given me such a new found freedom.  Living at the beach before was a bit of a problem with marine layer/clouds.  Not now!

[jaylw314]

37 minutes ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

For a mere 1 AMU more you can add a Flight Stream 210.  Then you can type waypoint names on your  tablet’s keyboard and send flight plans to the 530W via Bluetooth. Or you can edit flight plans graphically.  Either is way better than the 530W’s “twist-twist-push” data entry. 

And with the FS210 you get a “free” solid state AI to backup that spinning gyro in the panel.  

I've never heard of or looked into the FS210, sounds like an interesting way to spend more money...

Ah, that's why.  You're stuck with Foreflight, Apple and Garmin for everything

Edited January 25, 2018 by jaylw314

[DanM20C]

1 hour ago, jaylw314 said:

The annoying letters are R, S and T.  You have to twist the same distance in either direction, and they're common letters

You don’t want to go to RST anyway. The FBO fees are outrageous. 

Cheers, 

Dan

[thinwing]

On 1/24/2018 at 8:34 AM, mooneygirl said:

I am going to take a class on the 530W.I want to make sure I know it's capabilities and how to change things, on the fly so to speak.

Hi there..I have a copy of Max's flying the 530 that I found very helpful Jolie... Especially using obs mode for hold setups and entry's...pm your address (Jana prob has it somewhere?)And I will send it along...ps..how many hours on your AI/vac pump?