Back when I worked on marine electronics I maintained and installed alot of Trimble GPS systems. Some of them had a simulator mode that you could activate and it would output speed and course, etc. to whatever mapping device it was connected to. I am wondering if any Garmin devices have such a "mode". When I build up an avionics suite to go in one of our jets, I do as much of it as I can on the bench. It's alot easier to make changes and corrections when it's laid out on the bench instead of stuffed in some hard to get to wireway. If say, a GNC-530W had some kind of simulator program or mode, my pre-installation testing could be alot more thorough. With todays modern EFIS and autopilots, weather, terrain and all, it would be a huge help to be able to have it all set up on my bench and pump some simulated GPS and NAV data into the whole system and op check all of it. Make the whole system think it's flying some specific route. So do Garmin (or any other makes) have such a simulator mode?
