Approach plates on 296, 396, 496

[Rick_A]

I received an interesting email today from True Flight, the maker of the Flight Cheetah.

They have a product that will give geo-referenced approach overlay on the 296, 396, 496. It looks pretty interesting. The email contained a promo code of "009" for $50 off the regular price of $199 good until the 15th.

When you load the approach on the x96 you have to select which approached to load, which is the biggest negative that I see (besides the fact that it doesn't support my 696).

Here's the link with more info: http://www.aviationsafety.com/garminoverlay.html

I hope this post doesn't violate any posting rules since True Flight is not an advertiser on VAF (but they would be if they were smart).

[n5lp]

This is the kind of thing that really interests me, for the gadget value, if nothing else. So I go to the website and am completely turned off.

NONE, of the 50 or so questions that I have are answered. They don't tell me how it integrates with the Garmin menu system, or how many approaches can be loaded, or how it looks on a Garmin or anything else, but they are prepared to take my money.

If someone gets this, I would really like to hear their take on it. Until then, forget it!

[PaigeHoffart]

If you watch the video, you can see what they're doing. Their software basically allows you to load approach waypoints from their database into the Garmin. They never actually show a screen shot of the Garmin, and he doesn't go into any detail on the menus, but I would imagine each approach you load would appear as a route that could be activated.

Paige

[Brantel]

I agree, the video suggest that they are just loading a bunch of waypoints and routes made up of those waypoints.

Problem is they never show you an actual approach????? What kind of marketing is that?

[hevansrv7a]

My '496 already has approaches built in (waypoints) and selectable approaches for each airport. What it does not have is any graphical representation of the approach, minimums, missed approach specifications, etc.

[Brantel]

The built in approaches only go from the FAF to the MAP.... This seems to add all the others.

In the video seems to suggest that that they send the minimums and stuff as well but I have no idea how this would work...

[breister]

So, has anyone contacted them?

[PCHunt]

Here is an email exchange between me and TF: Their reply, followed by my questions to them. Also, it appears to me that the approach is geo-referenced, and shows "track up" at all times during the approach.

Hi Pete,

Currently you select one approach at a time, but it should be easy enough for our programmer to make a change so you can select several at a time. We will look into that.

Your Garmin will hold 50 routes. Each approach would be one route, and each missed approach would be one route. How many approaches you can store would be a limitation of the Garmin unit and not our software as we make all 13,000 approaches available to you. You can add and delete approaches, just like you can add and delete routes on your Garmin now.

If you have any additional questions, please let me know.

Happy Flying!

Carol Roehner
True Flight Inc.
866-44.3-3342
www.aviationsafety.com


From: Pete Hunt
Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2009 4:45 PM
To: sales@aviationsafety.com
Subject: Approaches for Garmin GPS



I have a couple of questions about the track-up approaches for the Garmin 2/3/496 GPS:

Your video showed selecting one approach at a time for download to the Garmin. Is there a way to download a large number of approaches at once?

Will a Garmin 396 need additional memory in order to hold a large number of approaches?

Thanks,

Pete Hunt
San Diego

[Ironflight]

I'm still totally confused by this after watching their video. It doesn't appear to me that they show "Geo-referenced approach plates" at all - they show the route to fly for the approach. Not sure how they give you vertical information. I don't see that they are giving you any graphics that the Garmin doesn't have built in.

To me, a "Geo-referenced approach plate" is an actual approach plate with the airplane's actual position shown in real time.

Paul

[Brantel]

I am with Paul. This is nothing more than a fancy way to enter user waypoints and then create a route out of them.

This would look on screen just like any other route that you might manually enter.

I bet there is no vertical minimums/info being actually displayed on the Garmin.