Garmin Revolutionizes Aviation Charting with SmartCharts

[Garmin Aviation Team]

The Garmin team is excited to announce the release of SmartCharts, the newest tool in the Garmin Piot iOS app:

Terminal procedure chart formatting has not changed much since their inception in the early 20^th century. These traditional charts have to account for all runways, transitions, approach minimums, etc. which can make charts congested and hard to quickly analyze. The Garmin Team has revolutionized how we view and process chart data with data-driven SmartCharts that declutter, simplify information, and help to reduce mental math in a high workload environment. SmartCharts serve as a primary charting tool with enhanced airport diagrams, departure procedures, arrival procedures, and instrument approaches to help pilots visualize the flight environment right from their iPad or iPhone. 

Enhanced Airport Diagrams

SmartCharts airport diagrams utilize the foundation of the SafeTaxi chart and incorporate additional details that enhance the amount of information at your fingertips. Pilots can visually see detailed runway and taxiway markings, approach lighting systems, and airport iconography such as VORs and wind sock location. Each airport diagram has imbedded hot spot, takeoff minimum, and alternate minimum chart data to prevent swapping back and forth between charts to find relevant details. With the one touch buttons around the perimeter of these charts, pilots can quickly view COM frequencies, NOTAMs, and traditional government charts.

Departure and Arrival Charts

Traditional departure and arrival charts provide pilots with way more information than they will need for their flight. By filtering aircraft type, route transition, and runway of intended use on SmartCharts, pilots can utilize a decluttered chart which shows only the applicable route, fixes, and crossing restrictions. Departure and arrival procedures become much simpler to brief with the details button and quick access COMs/Routes buttons.

Instrument Approach Charts

Finding, briefing, and executing approaches becomes a breeze with SmartCharts technology. With the ability to filter all approaches by height, visibility, and approach lighting systems, pilots can get their ATIS information and quickly decide on which approach will work best for their flight. The set minima tab also helps reduce mental math by allowing pilots to select their approach category, specific approach type, and toggling on applicable non-standard conditions at the airport to automatically correct ceiling and visibility requirements. SmartCharts is the first to provide a georeferenced vertical profile view of approaches to help visualize aircraft position relative to the approach path, terrain, and obstacles. With quick access to COMs, briefing details, and missed approach procedures, pilots can spend less time heads down when in a high workload environment.

Getting Started

SmartCharts are available in the US and Bahamas for Garmin Pilot Premium iOS users. Current Garmin Pilot Standard subscribers in all regions have received a complimentary Premium upgrade through August 31^st. Subscribers that have completed a trial in the past  have received a complimentary 30-day trial of Garmin Pilot Premium starting today. If you have never tried Garmin Pilot before, we invite you to try it any time with a complimentary 30-day Premium trial. This complimentary upgrade unlocks all Garmin Pilot features and functionality in the app as well as Garmin Pilot Web, so give them both a try today! 

If your app hasn’t automatically updated yet, please go to the app store, search for Garmin Pilot, click on the Garmin Pilot app, and select the update button next to the Garmin Pilot icon.

I'll follow-up later this week with a video my colleague, Sabrina, a V-Tail Bonanza owner and type-rated Learjet and Hawker pilot put together that walks through SmartCharts and how she uses it in her everyday flying. In the meantime, there are short videos you can watch at garmin.com/smartcharts for more details.

We are excited to be sharing SmartCharts with you all today and look forward to hearing your feedback. 

Joe Megna

Sales & Customer Experience Manager

[Rick Junkin]

23 minutes ago, Garmin Aviation Team said:

We are excited to be sharing SmartCharts with you all today and look forward to hearing your feedback. 

This is a great idea and has been a long time coming. I'll be checking it out and getting familiar with it using x-plane.

Will the SmartCharts procedure charts be incorporated into the G3X Touch databases?

[exM20K]

This is brilliant. It *might* be enough for me to install the flight stream, switch to Garmin Pilot, and control my xm radio from the iPad.  
and one of the developers owns a Mooney!

@Garmin Aviation Team how about porting to the G1000 NXI and pushing that through for Mooney? I can dream, right?

-dan

[kortopates]

Very very cool! I'll be trying it out very shortly with my morning student.

There are 5 short tutorial videos explaining how to best use the new functionality. Here is link to the first one:

Also Avweb has a longer review video of them here:

 

Edited May 28 by kortopates

[Greg Ellis]

I have spent my morning in between patients checking this out since I updated my GP to the latest version.  It is pretty cool.  It follows a good flow pattern for IFR work and it does remove a lot of the clutter when selecting a specific STAR or DP or approach procedure.  I think it will work out quite well.  But like everything it will take some getting used to but I think it is a good update.  The Youtube videos are helpful getting started as well.

[Greg Ellis]

And to add, the STAR, DP's, and profile view of approach charts are all Geo-referenced so your flight tracks on those charts.

[midlifeflyer]

I've been playing with it on the ground. Very impressive and I can't wait to try it in the air.

[LANCECASPER]

13 hours ago, Garmin Aviation Team said:

The Garmin team is excited to announce the release of SmartCharts, the newest tool in the Garmin Piot iOS app:

Terminal procedure chart formatting has not changed much since their inception in the early 20^th century. These traditional charts have to account for all runways, transitions, approach minimums, etc. which can make charts congested and hard to quickly analyze. The Garmin Team has revolutionized how we view and process chart data with data-driven SmartCharts that declutter, simplify information, and help to reduce mental math in a high workload environment. SmartCharts serve as a primary charting tool with enhanced airport diagrams, departure procedures, arrival procedures, and instrument approaches to help pilots visualize the flight environment right from their iPad or iPhone. 

Enhanced Airport Diagrams

SmartCharts airport diagrams utilize the foundation of the SafeTaxi chart and incorporate additional details that enhance the amount of information at your fingertips. Pilots can visually see detailed runway and taxiway markings, approach lighting systems, and airport iconography such as VORs and wind sock location. Each airport diagram has imbedded hot spot, takeoff minimum, and alternate minimum chart data to prevent swapping back and forth between charts to find relevant details. With the one touch buttons around the perimeter of these charts, pilots can quickly view COM frequencies, NOTAMs, and traditional government charts.

Departure and Arrival Charts

Traditional departure and arrival charts provide pilots with way more information than they will need for their flight. By filtering aircraft type, route transition, and runway of intended use on SmartCharts, pilots can utilize a decluttered chart which shows only the applicable route, fixes, and crossing restrictions. Departure and arrival procedures become much simpler to brief with the details button and quick access COMs/Routes buttons.

Instrument Approach Charts

Finding, briefing, and executing approaches becomes a breeze with SmartCharts technology. With the ability to filter all approaches by height, visibility, and approach lighting systems, pilots can get their ATIS information and quickly decide on which approach will work best for their flight. The set minima tab also helps reduce mental math by allowing pilots to select their approach category, specific approach type, and toggling on applicable non-standard conditions at the airport to automatically correct ceiling and visibility requirements. SmartCharts is the first to provide a georeferenced vertical profile view of approaches to help visualize aircraft position relative to the approach path, terrain, and obstacles. With quick access to COMs, briefing details, and missed approach procedures, pilots can spend less time heads down when in a high workload environment.

Getting Started

SmartCharts are available in the US and Bahamas for Garmin Pilot Premium iOS users. Current Garmin Pilot Standard subscribers in all regions have received a complimentary Premium upgrade through August 31^st. Subscribers that have completed a trial in the past  have received a complimentary 30-day trial of Garmin Pilot Premium starting today. If you have never tried Garmin Pilot before, we invite you to try it any time with a complimentary 30-day Premium trial. This complimentary upgrade unlocks all Garmin Pilot features and functionality in the app as well as Garmin Pilot Web, so give them both a try today! 

If your app hasn’t automatically updated yet, please go to the app store, search for Garmin Pilot, click on the Garmin Pilot app, and select the update button next to the Garmin Pilot icon.

I'll follow-up later this week with a video my colleague, Sabrina, a V-Tail Bonanza owner and type-rated Learjet and Hawker pilot put together that walks through SmartCharts and how she uses it in her everyday flying. In the meantime, there are short videos you can watch at garmin.com/smartcharts for more details.

We are excited to be sharing SmartCharts with you all today and look forward to hearing your feedback. 

Joe Megna

Sales & Customer Experience Manager

Will there be a software update to the Garmin Aera 760 to incorporate Smart Charts?

[kortopates]

I got to use it all day today.
it’s really nice but there were two features i missed:
I) i love the track vector and set it for 5 min to show where i’ll be upto the next 5 min - very helpful to see in a glance when I am 30 sec out or a minute or longer out from the final approach course (as an example).
ii) Traffic isn’t displayed on the approach charts which means i have to go back to main map with the smart chart or go another display with traffic. Right now this seems like a big problem to me since i fly in the US’s busiest airspace. Although it was an IMC day here today, I was reminded traffic is not just important to help avoid other traffic but also to maintain separation with traffic ahead or behind when ATC says best forward speed or slowest possible. With traffic on the chart it’s real clear what i need to do to avoid getting vectored off the approach but without it’s really hard.

@Garmin Aviation Team - are these things we may see soon?
Otherwise very nice, but i haven’t had a chance to see if weather is integrated on the approach charts too.
Seeing the airplane on the GP profile view and track on the lateral view is a big step up in situational awareness and a big help in an emergency backup situation.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[midlifeflyer]

6 hours ago, kortopates said:

I got to use it all day today.
it’s really nice but there were two features i missed:
I) i love the track vector and set it for 5 min to show where i’ll be upto the next 5 min - very helpful to see in a glance when I am 30 sec out or a minute or longer out from the final approach course (as an example).
ii) Traffic isn’t displayed on the approach charts which means i have to go back to main map with the smart chart or go another display with traffic. Right now this seems like a big problem to me since i fly in the US’s busiest airspace. Although it was an IMC day here today, I was reminded traffic is not just important to help avoid other traffic but also to maintain separation with traffic ahead or behind when ATC says best forward speed or slowest possible. With traffic on the chart it’s real clear what i need to do to avoid getting vectored off the approach but without it’s really hard.

 

I think the goal here was to have a chart like we have  with a government or Jepp chart that we don’t overlay on the map, while decluttering it. “Declutter” and showing traffic, weather, obstacles, etc would seem to be polar opposites. But since it is all digital, I can see Garmin adding the ability for the user to add some clutter back in.

(You can, btw, use it in split screen, with the obvious size and space limitations, but it’s not bad.)

[Pinecone]

I agree that weather and appropriate traffic would be good.

But it needs to migrate to the installed avionics.  Same display on G3X/G500TXi and GTNs. 

Also, to talk between them.  So, if I call up a procedure and "customize" it for right now, I want to be able to push that into my flight plan on the GTN and show it on my G3X.  Same with frequencies, so I call up that page and tap Tower, I would like to push that into a com radio.

A nice start though.

[flyboy0681]

Since there aren't any videos of actual flights yet, I'm wondering if the Smartchart orients itself based on position. For example, if flying a course reversal, will the map and labels be oriented for the direction of flight or is it fixed like an approach plate?

[midlifeflyer]

12 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

Since there aren't any videos of actual flights yet, I'm wondering if the Smartchart orients itself based on position. For example, if flying a course reversal, will the map and labels be oriented for the direction of flight or is it fixed like an approach plate?

There is one. Josh Flowers/Aviation 101 has a flight with it. I'm pretty sure at this point its fixed north up. There's no icon or button to change orientation which I would expect if it's variable.

 

[NickG]

I've been using GP for quite a while. I've always preferred it over FF but these smart charts are a killer feature. Love it! The video @midlifeflyerposted is a good example of its use (if you can bear the presenters).

[flyboy0681]

56 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

There is one. Josh Flowers/Aviation 101 has a flight with it. I'm pretty sure at this point its fixed north up. There's no icon or button to change orientation which I would expect if it's variable.

 

Most interesting. Flight orientation would have been the icing on the cake, but it appears to be an incredible leap forward for IFR flying.

It's a shame that that incredible panel (including Smart Glide) has to fly at such low speeds.

[midlifeflyer]

I just flew an approach in X-Plane with it. I didn't really notice it in the other videos, but when you load an LPV or  ILS, it also creates a waypoint for the calculated location of the DA on both the Plan View and the Profile View.

[Vance Harral]

1 hour ago, flyboy0681 said:

Since there aren't any videos of actual flights yet, I'm wondering if the Smartchart orients itself based on position. For example, if flying a course reversal, will the map and labels be oriented for the direction of flight or is it fixed like an approach plate?

Its fixed like an approach plate, which is how I prefer it.

My instrument student showed up this morning with a trial subscription of Garmin Pilot with smart charts and we gave it a tryout today.  I'm very impressed, I'll be putting Garmin Pilot on my own iPad ASAP.

One of the truly killer features is that once you select an approach and transition, all the irrelevant information (other transitions, other minimums, etc) is decluttered from the chart.

[donkaye, MCFI]

I was just about to call Garmin and ask why they would announce and not have a user able to upgrade to the new version.  Then I see everyone else seems be able to do it.  I still can't update my older version of GP to the new version.  Is anyone else having this issue or is there some magic that needs to be done to update?

[flyboy0681]

16 minutes ago, donkaye, MCFI said:

I was just about to call Garmin and ask why they would announce and not have a user able to upgrade to the new version.  Then I see everyone else seems be able to do it.  I still can't update my older version of GP to the new version.  Is anyone else having this issue or is there some magic that needs to be done to update?

With the new version I was two releases back. When I downloaded the update it brought it up to the release prior to the new one, which I thought was odd because I too was looking for the new feature. About thirty minutes later I went back to the App Store and it downloaded the new version. I'm thinking that GP needed to be at the latest release before it could update to the current.

[toto]

47 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

It's a shame that that incredible panel (including Smart Glide) has to fly at such low speeds.

They're in the middle of building a Sling TSi, so they'll soon be at something closer to Mooney speeds

 

[Max Clark]

This might be the feature that forces me off ForeFlight finally

[larryb]

I was able to update the app itself but have been stuck here for an hour

[Pinecone]

58 minutes ago, donkaye, MCFI said:

I was just about to call Garmin and ask why they would announce and not have a user able to upgrade to the new version.  Then I see everyone else seems be able to do it.  I still can't update my older version of GP to the new version.  Is anyone else having this issue or is there some magic that needs to be done to update?

1) Go into App Store

2)  Search for Garmin Pilot

3)  Once you get the results from the search, find Garmin Pilot

4)  Tap the Garmin Pilot icon in the search results.  Like you were going read more about the App

5)  You should see the Update button.

6)  Tap the Update button

[midlifeflyer]

26 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

1) Go into App Store

2)  Search for Garmin Pilot

3)  Once you get the results from the search, find Garmin Pilot

4)  Tap the Garmin Pilot icon in the search results.  Like you were going read more about the App

5)  You should see the Update button.

6)  Tap the Update button

That's about it. 

[PeteMc]

2 hours ago, donkaye, MCFI said:

I still can't update my older version of GP to the new version.  

Are you running the latest version of iPadOS?  It requires iPadOS 17.4 or higher.  Also, how much available memory?

And I heard the installation of the latest version with SmartCharts required a new download of the database(s).  So if that's the case and you would have to wait for the new download anyway, you could always delete your current version and reinstall the new one.  

Edited May 29 by PeteMc