Garmin 695/696

[N200PF]

Well I'm designing my panel now with dual AFS and a garmin stack. The 696 will be easy to fit in but it raises another question in my mind. With everything this new unit does, I'm not feeling great about putting money in to the good old 430W that was going to be at the center of my stack. The 696 seems to kick it's arse but I need the 430 for IFR.

I can only imagine that Garmin will fix that problem in fairly sort order and build out an IFR certified relplacement for the 430W with some of the 696 functionality. I only hope they're nice to us and allow some kind of upgrade path...and make it the same size so we can swith them out!

Anyone heard anything they can talk about?

- Peter

[Ironflight]

Originally Posted by SteinAir

Hey Paul....did you happen to notice the real life scanned Satellite images available at a certain zoom distance? Just curious to see you were surprised by some of the things I was?! Did you notice they have all different kinds of airplanes/helicopter to use as an icon (high wing/low wing/jet/helicopter), but no rocket or space shuttle - did you yell at them about that?!?

Yeah, I completely forgot about the Satellite view Stein! I have brought it up, but not for awhile - too much clutter and not a lot of use for me while I'm flying - I'll just look out the window (or at the Synthetic Vision on my GRT...). But yup, it's pretty neat.

I tried to get them to add an RV for an ICON - the low wing single looks suspiciously like a Cirrus to me. Oh, and you can build your own opening "Splash" screen - I used a picture of the Valkyrie so if the thing "walks away" at a fly-in, it's easy to identify....

Paul

[Brantel]

Paul,

How the heck did you get selected to be part of the beta program? Did they contact you or did you apply somewhere?

Did they give you that unit as a token of appreciation for the hard work testing it or did you have to pay for it?

[sneedrv-6]

If you plug your 496 weather antenna into the 696 will it get the weather on the 696?

Thanks,

Jason

[mburch]

Originally Posted by SteinAir

Did you notice they have all different kinds of airplanes/helicopter to use as an icon (high wing/low wing/jet/helicopter), but no rocket or space shuttle - did you yell at them about that?!?

Somebody told me you can actually download new vehicle symbols from here: http://www.garmin.com/vehicles/ If you unzip the files and put them on an SD card under "/Garmin/vehicle" they will show up as a choice on the setup page. I'm thinking the pizza slice would be fun...

mcb

[w1curtis]

Originally Posted by N200PF

...I can only imagine that Garmin will fix that problem in fairly sort order and build out an IFR certified relplacement for the 430W with some of the 696 functionality. I only hope they're nice to us and allow some kind of upgrade path...and make it the same size so we can swith them out!

Anyone heard anything they can talk about?

- Peter

They already do, it's a GNS-430W and an GMX-200.

A combined product would be a detriment to those who only want one or the other and it would be MUCH more expensive--so why do the R&D. You want the functionality of the 696 in a panel mount, the 430W/GMX-200 is it.

The GNS-4/530W and 696 serve two completely different functions and I would not consider one to be a replacement of the other but complements to each other.

[SteinAir]

Originally Posted by sneedrv-6

If you plug your 496 weather antenna into the 696 will it get the weather on the 696?

Thanks,

Jason

Hi Jason,

That I don't know, but I'll try it here in the shop one of these days and report back. What I do know is that the 696 XM antenna is MUCH nicer. It's smaller by a fair measure, and also is completely black now so it won't look like quite as much of a carbunkle....

Cheers,
Stein

[TTU_RV7]

Well this creates quite a conundrum for me (big college word.) I am in the final stages of designing my panel/electrical.

The full plan is 2 GRTs (stacked like in Paul's -8) on the pilot side and eventually a 3rd GRT on the copilot side. Flying solo, PFD on top, Nav on MFD#2, engine info on MFD#3. A 496 is planned embedded in the radio stack (SL30+Icom200+G327+PS7000) to provide GPS (GRT GPS is b/u) to the GRTs +provide XM WX.

Question for Paul and Stein: Do you think there is enough information on the new 696 to replace MFD#2 from the GRT plan? From what I can see, the 696 really eats up a lot of panel space and I am not sure I can fit it and still maintain cockpit flow.

Thanks

[Ironflight]

Originally Posted by Brantel

Paul,

How the heck did you get selected to be part of the beta program?

High friends in low places...or is it the other way around?

Paul

[Ironflight]

Originally Posted by TTU_RV7

The full plan is 2 GRTs (stacked like in Paul's -8) on the pilot side and eventually a 3rd GRT on the copilot side. Flying solo, PFD on top, Nav on MFD#2, engine info on MFD#3. A 496 is planned embedded in the radio stack (SL30+Icom200+G327+PS7000) to provide GPS (GRT GPS is b/u) to the GRTs +provide XM WX.

Question for Paul and Stein: Do you think there is enough information on the new 696 to replace MFD#2 from the GRT plan? From what I can see, the 696 really eats up a lot of panel space and I am not sure I can fit it and still maintain cockpit flow.

I won't tell you how to spend your money Mike, but don't forget that the newer GRT displays (HS and HX) display a strip of engine/systems data along the bottom. That pretty much allows you to not have to run a full-time systems page on another DU. I usually have PFD on top (with the engine strip), and a split screen Systems/Performance/Map page on the bottom, with the map running on my 696 (previously 396) and 430. As much as I love GRT, the 696 map is just awesome - for Nav features, it will be very hard to beat. I'm very happy with two GRT DU's and the 696.

Paul