Ifr routes in GNS430W

[AndreiC]

Ok, here is a question. Yesterday I flew IFR from SBA to SNA in the busy LA airspace. The clearance on departure included SBAP6, the SBA Papa 6 route. My ForeFlight knows this route, but I was not able to find it in my GNS430W. Is there a way to find it? Without it, I had to put in like a million IFR waypoints in the 430…is there a better way to do this?

Thanks. 

[philiplane]

Unfortunately, not with your GNS430W alone. The lack of airways has always been a major shortcoming.  

You can add a Flightstream 210, which can transfer Foreflight flight plans to the 430W. Probably a $2-3K install depending on what they have to do.

The GNS480 was the first WAAS GPS back in 2004, and it had airways available because it was intended for commercial operators. 

The newer GTN650 has airways available since it was introduced in 2012.

Avidyne also has airways available in the IFD440/540 series. You can slide one of them in, but they're about $14k now.

You also might want to think about swapping out the 430W while it still has some value. Garmin just stopped supporting GNS430W screen failures, and it's only a matter of time before they won't repair them at all. 

[midlifeflyer]

The inability of the GNS to load an airway aside, the recognition and automatic loading of SOCAL TEC routes by identifier in Foreflight is a Foreflight feature. It's not in the panel database even in the newest GTNs.  Flightstream is the answer even then.

Edited March 2, 2024 by midlifeflyer

[AndreiC]

Where are these routes listed for old school people? Are they in the big book of approaches, or where else? Can you ask approach to not give you these routes?

[midlifeflyer]

3 minutes ago, AndreiC said:

Where are these routes listed for old school people? Are they in the big book of approaches, or where else? Can you ask approach to not give you these routes?

They are located in the Chart Supplement just after the Preferred IFR Routes. There are section for SOCAL, NORCAL, and the northeast corridor. 

You can find them online in three good places. The FAA's official preferred IFR route site, https://www.fly.faa.gov/rmt/nfdc_preferred_routes_database.jsp, will have them but it's not that easy to use. Most probably use LA Center's site, https://laartcc.org/tecroutes, or the provate MyFlightRoute, https://myflightroute.com/inputtec.php

You can always tell them you don't have the TEC routes, but then after "advise ready to copy," they'll just "Cleared to the John Wayne airport via Radar Vectors KWANG CMA VNY V186 BAYJY V363 POXKU V8 SLI Direct. Climb and maintain..." and do it anyway. There is a reason for these preferred routings.

[midlifeflyer]

BTW, don't feel bad about not knowing this. Unless you trained in the northeast or the west coast, chances are you've never even heard of TEC routes. If I had a roomful of CFIIs from other parts of the country, and mentioned TEC routes, there's good chance 90% wouldn't know what I'm talking about. Even more potentially confusing, they are treated differently in each of those three parts of the country. SOCAL is unique in treating them as a named enroute procedure and assigning them by name.

[hammdo]

I just load the TEC route in ForeFlight and then click the TEC route in the Flight Plan window and select expand. It will put all the waypoints in the flight plan. Then I push the plan to my Garmin (GNC 355 in my case) but if you get flight stream for the 430, you’ll be able to do the same.

-Don

 

[midlifeflyer]

19 hours ago, hammdo said:

I just load the TEC route in ForeFlight and then click the TEC route in the Flight Plan window and select expand. It will put all the waypoints in the flight plan. Then I push the plan to my Garmin (GNC 355 in my case) but if you get flight stream for the 430, you’ll be able to do the same.

-Don

 

Have you tried transferring without expanding? I did it once with a holding pattern I created in FF and I'm trying to remember whether it will expand automatically when being exported. It was pretty funny...

[hammdo]

Not tried it, just assumed I had to expand since TEC routes didn’t show up. Worth a go next opportunity!

-Don