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RV7ator

Well Known Member
Why won't my GTN650 offer up available approaches for the destination airport on an active flight plan? I'm following the buttonology of the manual, but it just goes around in circles and asks me to enter the airport identifier.

Does Garmin, in their less than infinite wisdom, shut off access to the approach (departures & arrivals, too) if the data base has expired? Even so, when stabbing around haphazardly in the past, I was surprised to see the procedures keys were illuminated and active. How I got there, I haven't a clue.

Is there some dark secret about driving one of these difficult contraptions, such as it must be in some mode or other not made clear in the manual?

Brother, do I like ILS. Tune frequency, transfer, fly the approach. Idiot simple. ADF is even simpler: tune the frequency. But then, you must be more pilot than radio operator.

John Siebold
 
It is easy:

Go to the HOME menu

Press the PROC button

Press the APPROACH button that does not look like a button it has a bunch of ------------- on it.

The default airport should be the last airport in your flight plan. If you want a different airport, you can change the airport.

Then press the Approach button that is another one of those ------- buttons. This will give you a list of the available approaches.

My database is over a year expired and all the approaches still show up.
 
RV7ator said:
Brother, do I like ILS. Tune frequency, transfer, fly the approach. Idiot simple. ADF is even simpler: tune the frequency. But then, you must be more pilot than radio operator.
Click to expand...

Truer words were never spoken...in private aircraft anyway.
The user interface in larger aircraft avionics is head and shoulders above that which is available in small aircraft. I have played with a GTN 650/750 and it is a huge leap over the 430/530 interface but it still leaves something to be desired.
 
Thanks, Brian, that's per the manual and how I poke it. The -------- buttons all say "no approaches (or arrivals or departures) available". The destination airport at the end of the flight plan is also displayed....just in case I want to change the airport, but changing the arrival airport doesn't make the buttons happy, either. (They DO all have RNAV approaches, BTW. My paper charts say so! :rolleyes:)

We trust our lives to these miserable failure-prone computers. Over the last ten years I've experience countless computerized avionics failures in the RVs. One vacuum failure in a 172. Have we made progress?

Tomorrow I'll try accessing the --------- buttons via the waypoints info from home page. At the moment, I think this box is busted.

Anyone else with some insight?

John Siebold
 
Have you spent any time at all on the phone with Garmin's experts? They have always been quick to find my errors, I'm sure they will find yours as well.
 
RV7ator said:
Does Garmin, in their less than infinite wisdom, shut off access to the approach (departures & arrivals, too) if the data base has expired? Even so, when stabbing around haphazardly in the past, I was surprised to see the procedures keys were illuminated and active. How I got there, I haven't a clue.
Click to expand...

They should if they don't. My database is current, so I can't tell you if it gets turned off... but just like it's not legal to fly with expired plates, they would be doing you a favor disabling terminal procedures that are expired. Subtle unnoticed procedural changes have gotten people hurt. I can tell you flying professionally, if the database in the FMS isn't current, we don't even board passengers let alone go flying.

As far as computer evolution... I owned one of the first Magellan handhelds, I was instructing when the KLN89B was the most advanced IFR navigator on the market (it was amazing, still is). I remember when things like the G1000 and G3X were nothing but fantasy. Twenty years ago we were doing human factors studies to see if off the wall ideas like synthetic vision and highway in the sky were just too over the top to be plausible.

Equivocally and emphatically I would answer yes to the question of whether we've made progress. If it's such a miserable failure prone piece of gear, may I suggest you remove it? Perhaps its the indian and not the arrows?

Try googleing "GTN650 simulator" and download one of the ones available. There is also one for ipad through the itunes store. Lastly, try youtube, it's loaded with videos.
 
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Is the database yours, or borrowed? I believe the GTN series won't work with any data card but one you paid Garmin for.
 
RV7ator said:
Thanks, Brian, that's per the manual and how I poke it. The -------- buttons all say "no approaches (or arrivals or departures) available". The destination airport at the end of the flight plan is also displayed....just in case I want to change the airport, but changing the arrival airport doesn't make the buttons happy, either. (They DO all have RNAV approaches, BTW. My paper charts say so! :rolleyes:)

We trust our lives to these miserable failure-prone computers. Over the last ten years I've experience countless computerized avionics failures in the RVs. One vacuum failure in a 172. Have we made progress?

Tomorrow I'll try accessing the --------- buttons via the waypoints info from home page. At the moment, I think this box is busted.

Anyone else with some insight?

John Siebold
Click to expand...

If this does not work, most likely the box does not know it has a database, the approaches you are looking for are not in the database or something is wrong with your database. Is your database card damaged? Does the GTN show databases installed during boot up?

Is it possible that the RNAV approaches were published after your database release date?
 
Hello John,

Sorry to hear you are having trouble with your GTN 650, but I'm sure we'll be able to get you going. There is a lot of misinformation in this thread, so let me clear that up first:

1. The FAA would prefer that you have an up to date database for IFR flight, but an expired database does not prevent you from loading or activating an approach on any Garmin IFR navigator I am aware of, including your GTN 650.

2. Your GTN 650 will absolutely allow you to navigate an approach to any airport for which it has approach data, not just the last airport in the flight plan. The destination airport is the default selection when you initially go to load an approach - I'm sure you'll agree that this would be the correct choice in the majority of normal cases - but you are only one button push away from being able to change to a different airport.

As for your specific issue, the advice Brian gave above is all correct. One thing that would be good to check is to see if your database actually contains any approach data for the airport you are trying to use. You can verify this by looking at the airport on the Waypoint Info page as you mentioned - navigate to Waypoint Info, select the airport in question, and press the Procedures button.

We'll be happy to look into your issue if you can advise which airport you are using, as well as the exact version of the Jeppesen database you have loaded. To access this information, press the System button on the Home menu, select System Status, and press the Database Information button.

For general information to help learn the ins and outs of the GTN without using up avgas, various training videos, a PC simulator, and an iPad app are all available. For GTN operational questions, our Pilot Operations team is at 1-866-739-5687 and I know they deal with helping pilots figure out the nuances of their IFR navigators all day long. And as always, for personalized help please feel free to contact us by using the email address below.

- Matt
 
I appreciate the responses. Investigation and debriefing will resume tomorrow. I suspect some corruption of the data base. Today we will be reaffirming Archimedes Principal on the local kokanee lake.

John Siebold
 
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