Airspace Display in 400-Series Garmins

Palmpilot

Palmpilot

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Richard Palm
One of the planes I fly has a Garmin GPS-400W, which uses the same manual as the GNS-430W, but it doesn't have the comm portion of the latter. I can't get it to display the boundaries of class B, C, or D airspace. I've tried everything that seems applicable from the quick reference, and I am planning on searching the user guide, but meanwhile, has anyone else had this problem with a 400-series Garmin?
 
I just flew with one of these Saturday (you probably know the plane if it wasn't the exact same one -- 72G at RHV). It was definitely displaying airspace boundaries and sending messages any time I was within 10 minutes of any airspace boundary, which, at 140+ MPH is enough distance to be really annoying. On the 430 and G1000, you control it by pushing the CLR button repeatedly to "declutter" the NAV2 (map) page. I'd imagine it's exactly the same on a 400, though I haven't messed with it on that model.
 
My club plane has a GNS-430 and, as MAKG1 mentions, cycling through the declutter is probably what you need. It's a quick press and release on the CLR button, not the press-and-hold which has another function.
 
MAKG1 said:
I just flew with one of these Saturday (you probably know the plane if it wasn't the exact same one -- 72G at RHV). It was definitely displaying airspace boundaries and sending messages any time I was within 10 minutes of any airspace boundary, which, at 140+ MPH is enough distance to be really annoying. On the 430 and G1000, you control it by pushing the CLR button repeatedly to "declutter" the NAV2 (map) page. I'd imagine it's exactly the same on a 400, though I haven't messed with it on that model.
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Thanks everyone, I'll try that!

Makg, the plane I fly at RHV is 83E. I finally got the VFR portion of my Form 5 renewed a week ago, and I'm trying to improve my mastery of the buttonology before taking the IFR portion.
 
Palmpilot said:
Thanks everyone, I'll try that!

Makg, the plane I fly at RHV is 83E. I finally got the VFR portion of my Form 5 renewed a week ago, and I'm trying to improve my mastery of the buttonology before taking the IFR portion.
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I thought it might be…I know it has the same Garmin 400. But it also has a second GPS, more useful for the search patterns.

That's a nice plane, quite a lot newer than 72G. But I can't take the family in 83E (nor fly it as PIC yet -- my initial Form 5 is imminent).

There is a free 400-series simulator floating around somewhere, from Garmin. It can be configured as a 400 or a 430 or a few others.

FYI, 72G is Coby's 182N.

PM me if you need a safety pilot.
 
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There is also an airspace configuration page in there somewhere. I'll try to look it up this afternoon.

Do you need another GPS400?
 
MAKG1 said:
I thought it might be…I know it has the same Garmin 400. But it also has a second GPS, more useful for the search patterns.

That's a nice plane, quite a lot newer than 72G. But I can't take the family in 83E (nor fly it as PIC yet -- my initial Form 5 is imminent).

There is a free 400-series simulator floating around somewhere, from Garmin. It can be configured as a 400 or a 430 or a few others.
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I have that simulator. I'll fire it up and experiment with the declutter feature.

PM me if you need a safety pilot.
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Thanks, I will definitely take you up on that at some point.
 
kgruber said:
There is also an airspace configuration page in there somewhere. I'll try to look it up this afternoon.
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I found that page with the help of the quick reference, but that wasn't the problem. I didn't know that the CLR key controlled the declutter feature, and that's probably where the problem lies, because I mistakenly tried to use that key for purposes it wasn't designed for a few times.

Do you need another GPS400?
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CAP has that plane's panel chock full of avionics and special purpose electronics, so don't think there would be room for it anywhere.
 
Palmpilot said:
CAP has that plane's panel chock full of avionics and special purpose electronics, so don't think there would be room for it anywhere.
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No kidding.

And one of those is another GPS (not a Garmin). Neither of those GPS's have radio features, so there are also two VHF nav/comms and the usual transponder. Plus the CAP-specific equipment. It's a full panel.

CAP aircraft in general are full enough of extra equipment that it's a constant struggle against max gross to field a complete three person crew, even in a 182. Fortunately, Richard's squadron has a lot of small people. :)
 
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I just tried the simulator, and using the CLR key does reproduce what I was getting.

Why the heck did they use "CLR" to mean "declutter"? I used to think the 400 Series had an intuitive user interface, but now I'm starting to wonder. :mad2:
 
Palmpilot said:
I just tried the simulator, and using the CLR key does reproduce what I was getting.

Why the heck did they use "CLR" to mean "declutter"? I used to think the 400 Series had an intuitive user interface, but now I'm starting to wonder. :mad2:
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Garmin user interfaces, as a rule, are T E R R I B L E.

That same CLR button, if you hold it too long, takes you to a default page instead. It's also used to mean "no" (as opposed to ENTER, which is "yes") in a bunch of places. It also backs out of menus.

Basically, they have crammed too many functions into too few buttons.

But, once you get it, it's the same crappy interface on all the Garmin products.

You get to find more of their over engineered crap interfaces when you transition to G1000. 430s only have one bust button (CDI on an ILS or LOC approach). G1000s have at least three. I found the Class B bust button during my transition training (no I didn't bust, but I discovered VNAV silently overrides your altitudes if the alt bug is higher, which sucks when you're aimed at a Class B shelf).

Those guys think it's a good idea to set off an alarm when you're 1000 feet below your altitude setting in a climb. I can't tell you how many times that's made me go look for faults, when it really was telling me I was climbing normally and in two minutes I might have to do nothing ('cause the AP is set to capture altitude).
 
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I think the reason I thought Garmin UIs were good dates from the days when the KLN-89 was common. Its UI was downright user-hostile, in my opinion.
 
Palmpilot said:
I think the reason I thought Garmin UIs were good dates from the days when the KLN-89 was common. Its UI was downright user-hostile, in my opinion.
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I'll buy that there were worse ones. I've never used a KLN. Not sure I want to.

But if I made a UI that had the same button do 5 different things without at least a label change at work, I'd get drawn and quartered by the telescope operators (rightfully so, too).
 
Some of the rental planes I fly have the KLN-94. It actually has a pretty reasonable UI.
 
By the way, did you know that there is a simulator for the GPS formerly known as Apollo that's in that plane? It even has the SAR map feature. (You have to enable that both in the simulator menus, and via the front panel buttons.)

http://www8.garmin.com/include/gxsimulator/GX_Deluxe_Sim.zip

You have to extract all the zip files, and then run setup.exe. I have installed it successfully under both Windows XP and Windows 7. I found it essential to read the help file, beginning with the first item in the table of contents, in order to figure out how to use it.

Here are links to the 400 series simulators. The non-W version only runs under Windows XP. The W version also runs under later operating systems.

400 series:

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=3527

400W & 500W series:

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=3531
 
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