Anyone else get track artifacts on their Garmin 496?

A couple of flights ago I noticed something for the first time on my Garmin 496 screen. I can see little black lines on the screen, very small. After staring at them for a moment I realized I was looking at tracks of my flights. All of my flights.

I suppose I've made enough flights to some of the familiar places that the lines are now numerous enough for me to see patterns. I can clearly tell patterns around airports and even areas where I know I've practiced steep turns, stalls, etc.

I don't know if the screen photo below will show well enough for you to see, but I took a photo of the area around 52F and you can see black lines all around. Look closer and you'll realize they are in the shape of the pattern around the airport. This appears no matter what the scale of the map (I first noticed it on a flight to Bridgeport, TX to get fuel). The Garmin is not quite 2 years old.



Is this normal? Do others have this on their screens? Is there any way to get rid of it? It's not prominent enough to bother me now, but it makes me wonder if it will eventually start covering up landmarks on the map. Anyone else experience this? Does it get worse?

Chris

It's normal. You can go into the menu and erase them, as well as no recording tracks.

L.Adamson

Yup - "breadcrumbs" we call them. you can tell it to make them all go away, or (I think) how many to keep.

Paul

Or you can download them to your computer, put them on google maps and see how bad you flew (well at least this flight for me, holding patterns anyway)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=....311457,-104.59465&spn=0.294852,0.752563&z=11

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=...484435,-104.597397&spn=0.277163,0.727844&z=11

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=....484965,-104.734039&spn=0.55432,1.455688&z=10


This is actually a great way to show students where there were in the air in reference to the ground after the flight.