Garmin has released expanded features and new enhancements for the GTN touchscreen avionics.
New capabilities include customer-requested features, such as creating and executing customized holding patterns, search and rescue patterns, as well as animated NEXRAD weather imagery from a variety of weather sources.
The GTN 650/750 incorporate enhanced navigation functions that are commonly found within Garmin Integrated Flight Decks, including the display of fuel range rings, the ability to fly Instrument Approach Procedures (IAPs) with radius-to-fix (RF) leg types, and the option to load a secondary approach while flying a missed approach segment. Many of these new features are enabled by a free software update, according to company officials.
Pilots who fly with the GTN touchscreen series now have the flexibility to build customized holding patterns. These holds may be created over an existing fix in the navigation database or over a user-defined waypoint and inserted into a flight plan or via direct-to navigation. When creating a hold, pilots can input inbound or outbound course guidance, select left or right turns and specify leg length in time or distance.
Additionally, pilots may input an Expect Further Clearance (EFC) time, which populates a message on the display of the GTN as a reminder to depart the hold or contact ATC. Unpublished holds or those assigned by air traffic control are easily created and displayed on the GTN 650/750 to simplify the process of flying a holding pattern. With a compatible autopilot, this process is further simplified to support flying the entry of the hold and the holding pattern, Garmin officials noted.
Radius-to-fix (RF) leg support within a retrofit navigator provides customers with additional instrument approach options. With the GTN touchscreen series and a digital Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI), including the G500 or G600 flight displays, pilots can now fly RF leg types, which are sometimes found in complex Instrument Approach Procedures. This new capability provides pilots with greater access to airports in areas of the world where instrument approaches are nestled among terrain-challenged environments, company officials said.
Additional instrument approach enhancements include the option to load a secondary approach during the missed approach segment, so pilots can have time to prepare for the next approach sequence. For added situational awareness, waypoints prior to the final approach fix (FAF) are also displayed when selecting a vectors-to-final (VTF) transition.
Based on a number of customer requests, additional features provide pilots with a variety of enhancements to their existing GTN 650/750 series products, including:
- GTN COMM/NAV control from G3X Touch display
- Additional Metric and Imperial unit display options
- Updated ownship fixed-wing aircraft icons
- LP+V approach support
These new features are expected to be available in the third quarter of 2015 from Garmin Authorized Dealers for hundreds of aircraft makes and models.
I very much agree with ManyDecadesGA. You can’t even dial-in, or fly a published hold with the GPS. You have to do it the old fashion way with the NAV radio, a stopwatch, and the 5 T’s. Nice user interface with touch screen built around a 430W. Suitable for those pilots who have only an occasional need to fly an IFR approach in light IFR or for practice. I do not recommend these boxes for single-pilot, serious IFR/RNAV/RNP operations in high performance aircraft. Don’t waste you money.
A most laudable attempt by Garmin to attempt to fix an arguably still seriously deficient box.
But can it fly (what is becoming the ICAO global standard RNP capability) including procedures like NZQN or PAJN or CYLW RNP LNAV/VNAV procedures?,… at RNP .1?
Does it have critical RNP and ANP values depicted for both LNAV and VNAV?
Can it do vertical RNP?
Can it do GLS?
Can it even do a simple FIX page, or multiple FIX pages?
Can it do RTA in a VNAV descent ?
Can it retain an RNP trajectory after a first power source loss, with suitably IRU bounded ANP growth?
Can it up-link and downlink an RNP based trajectory set of WPs for PAST, NEXT, and NEXT+1?
Can it link trajectories and ADS-A, -B, and -C to FANS D/Ls or VDLM2?
If not, …and from first pass review it still doesn’t,… it still has nowhere near the capability of even a 1990s version of a typical air carrier transport jet FMS to help economically and effectively solve [Real] NextGen and global airspace ops. As such it is still a monument to obsolete PastGen, and while continuously improving Garmins offerings is certainly a most worthwhile endeavor, this new set of boxes still appears to be a marginally useful component for long term global flight operations, and real Nextgen, SESAR, or any other ATS evolutionary path.
Will these new features also be available to “disadvantaged users” who only have the GTN 625?