530W/KCS 55a/KFC 150 Holding

[rogerl]

who owns it

Edited March 14, 2021 by rogerl

[donkaye]

54 minutes ago, rogerl said:

There does not seem to be a definitive resource for the 530w/55a/150 combo.

Page 89, bullet 4 of the 530w manual says:
"The 500W-series unit provides course guidance only on the inbound side of the holding pattern. Roll steering is provided to aircraft with compatible autopilots."

The 530W "Trainer" program will fly the hold all day in "Nav" mode with any setting of the course pointer/heading bug - inbound, outbound and turns.

I was trained to use 530w/kfc150/kcs55a by navigating to the hold point, (in gps mode) setting the course pointer to the inbound (holding) course, doing the entry with "hdg" mode and bug steering, then using the heading bug in conjunction with switching between nav and hdg mode on the autopilot control head (e.g. steering to outbound by switching to "hdg", then moving bug to get a 180 to the outbound course, and similarly doing the 180 to the inbound course, switching back to "nav" mode when at a good intercept).

Seems weird that the trainer does this, and the 530 manual seems to contradict it.  Might it have to do with GPSS (which I don't have) ... the trainer/sim program doesn't specify anything like that ...

Two CFII's I have flow with use the above described technique, while a DPE I flew with yesterday (passed!) was thinking the system should behave similarly to that exhibited by the garmin 530w trainer program (the DPE was not super up on the 530w, being well into the 750's for his own flying).

Does anyone know whether this is an installation thing or intrinsic capability thing ??

tia, Roger

You're not going to fly automatic holding patterns without GPSS.  It's so beneficial that I would immediately run down to your friendly avionics shop and have the DAC 31 installed.  They're reasonably inexpensive, and after you use it for awhile, you'll wonder why you didn't get it sooner.