not being able to “join V394” on the 430.
Well, you can’t really use it for that and this is astonishing. In Europe, it doesn’t matter because one never has to deal with airways, only fixes and headings (and if they request an airway, I just ask them for a waypoint instead, not bothering with that). In the US, it’s actually very common to refer to airway names and the 430 provides zero help there.
If the examiner had asked me to do that, I would have been in trouble, too.
Yeah, it is one of the annoying things with the 430 and where it’s showing its age – joining an airway. The thing is almost 20 years old now. The newer 650/750 can do all that and I’m looking to upgrade to that at some point. I can do it it on the iPad and Foreflight dead easy, but I’m not allowed to use that on a check ride… 
I remember the Stanfield VOR from my FAA IR too damn well….
European ATC almost never give you an airway to fly. Just waypoints or vectors.
However, reading US forums, it seems to me that ATC there don’t use airway names either….
The thing I would most like for European IFR is a keypad. And storage of say 50 waypoints per flight plan. So not much really – except that avionics Marketing has been very determined to not provide a keypad for all those years, so we have been stuck with the crazy 2-knob entry. I am 100% sure the KLN94 has a secret RS232 interface for FP loading… I bet they all have. It’s the most obvious thing to have when developing a GPS, for development test purposes.
Other fish to fry are much smaller. Electronic loading would be nice but it involves having a “device” with you which has the route on it, which is another complication. In some “hassle” cases one might have just a scribbled (paper) route. The GNS480 has an IR port which was a great idea in its time but when Garmin bought the company (to kill a competitor) they never activated the software for it. Voice loading (Voiceflight) would be nice but there is a significant cost attached for Europe (do a search on Voiceflight) and I bet it would not work in-flight due to the noise level; I often load “other legs” while flying, partly to reduce the boredom. Also VF has been blocked by Garmin on all new products.
The FP entry interface on the new IFD540 is stunning. It is about 10x faster than a GNS or KLN box even if you just use the knobs, due to the predictive stuff and airway name entry. But nothing beats an FMS-like keypad. So I am doing nothing for a while 
Whereas I would give the G1000 UI a rating somewhere between “horrible” and “so-so after 50 hrs of use”, the 430/530’s most surely qualify as one of the worst UI’s ever conceived by mankind. I would think operating the Apollo lunar navigation module would be easier than setting up the missed approach on a 430.
You do get airway intercepts in US (“intercept Victor 25”), but I guess it largely depends on which part of the country you’re in.
Again, great job Adam – tough rating, but raises your game to a whole new level.
Congrats, Adam! Well done!
I would think operating the Apollo lunar navigation module would be easier than setting up the missed approach on a 430.
Having read about the device in question, I think that statement is factually accurate!
I fly missed approaches manually, with the AP in HDG mode.
Of course a real sky-god never goes missed
You might laugh, but rumour has it that when the Garmin GA division was set up with a bunch of ex King software engineers, they copied the King interface. King sued them, and some sort of settlement was reached, allowing them to continue with it. So we have the crappy interface running for 20+ years… Actually it would be OK if there was a keypad. I flew RHS in a CJ4 the other day (writeup on here) and the Collins FMS is equally impenetrable to the casual observer, but the keypad completely transforms the whole thing.
Peter, the new GTN series has soft keys on the monitor, so should be a lot friendlier to use. Closer to the nav software we use on the iPad in UI.
I’ve historically not been a Garminista, but the 650 and 750 have some interesting features from a die hard minimalist point of view: The 750 allows you to have a remote audio panel AND a remote transponder. That frees up huge real estate on the panel and de-clutters. The 650 can’t do a remote audio panel, but it does the remote transponder. If you want to minimise real estate, then a 650 with an audio panel is pretty much as small as it gets.
Below you will find Peter’s argument about redundancy etc.
European ATC almost never give you an airway to fly. Just waypoints or vectors.
However, reading US forums, it seems to me that ATC there don’t use airway names either….
ATC in the US had me intercept two yesterday. Assume on a 430 you just need to activate the relevant leg of the airway entered as a series of waypoints and intercept but that is much harder than with actual airways loaded. It also requires you to know which leg to activate.
And in Europe in the FL200+ areas you get airways all the time.
That’s what stitched me up on the first try, JasonC. Now I know what I should have done – put the two fixes in on either side of the airway and then activated that leg. Live and learn.
