Learning GPS Approaches

AggieMike88

AggieMike88

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The original "I don't know it all" of aviation.
An opportunity might arise soon to have access to a very affordable "usage cost" aircraft (PA28-140) that I would be comfortable using for my IFR training. This aircraft is /A equipped (if I'm interpreting the chart correct).

Say I used that and got my rating and all's well with knowing how to execute approaches available to an /A equipped aircraft.

The Skylane I usually fly has an CNX80 (GNS480) with current databases.

Is learning how fly GPS approaches after I have the IFR rating as simple as a few hours with a CFI-I who knows the CNX80 box and can teach me how to properly execute the approach? Or is it a bit more complicated than that?
 
AggieMike88 said:
Is learning how fly GPS approaches after I have the IFR rating as simple as a few hours with a CFI-I who knows the CNX80 box and can teach me how to properly execute the approach?
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In that situation, I'd like to do a couple of hours of knowledge training, an hour or two more with the CNX-80 simulator, and then a couple of hours in flight. Might need some debrief/additional training and another flight after that, but that's dependent on the individual and his/her past experience with similar systems.

No doubt some folks believe this can be accomplished on your own by reading the manual, playing with the sim, and then going out and flying yourself. My experience doing IR training with people who have done that (especially with the less user-friendly and more complex CNX-80/GNS480 when compared with the easier-to-use/learn GNS430/530) is they are merely fooling themselves, and generally know little of the system's capabilities and how to use them effectively and to their advantage.
 
I used the manual and practice in the airplane with a safety pilot when I got an aspen .I was already familiar with the 430 garmin.takes longer than you would guess.
 
Ron Levy said:
In that situation, I'd like to do a couple of hours of knowledge training, an hour or two more with the CNX-80 simulator, and then a couple of hours in flight. Might need some debrief/additional training and another flight after that, but that's dependent on the individual and his/her past experience with similar systems.

No doubt some folks believe this can be accomplished on your own by reading the manual, playing with the sim, and then going out and flying yourself. My experience doing IR training with people who have done that (especially with the less user-friendly and more complex CNX-80/GNS480 when compared with the easier-to-use/learn GNS430/530) is they are merely fooling themselves, and generally know little of the system's capabilities and how to use them effectively and to their advantage.
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To add on to what Ron posted, there is something special about going missed, pulling up the gear, making sure you're climbing correctly, communicating with ATC and then pressing some wrong button to have the GPS do something totally unexpected. For some reason, it's difficult to replicate this state of systems anarchy in the comfort of a simulator!
 
Ron Levy said:
... is they are merely fooling themselves, and generally know little of the system's capabilities and how to use them effectively and to their advantage.
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Every VFR flight I have been doing with the CNX80 equipped Skylane I learn a little something new and am once again amazed at what this brings to the party.

Thanks for your explanation, Ron... It might be to a greater advantage to learn and get the rating in the /G equipped aircraft and gain a good proficiency level there. Especially if everything learned in /G can be transferred to /A.
 
GPS approaches are generally simple, "T" shaped affairs with no course reversals, just 90degree turns. Most don't have changes in altitude during a procedure turn. The ones I've flown that do have a HILPT; If you can choose the correct hold entry, you can fly one. Hell, with WAAS the box tells you when to turn and in which direction, wind correction included. Punch the OBS hold button to sequence to the holding fix on the missed. Yes, there are going to be curveballs, like getting cleared direct to the FAF, or getting vectored to final ( don't choose VTF!) where knowing the box is essential.

If you get your instrument ticket flying needles only, a GPS and moving map is gravy and can be done in a couple of hours with a sim and a couple of hours with an instructor hat knows your box. That's how I did it. GPS makes life easy, IMHO.

Unfortunately now I've gone backwards from a 430W to a GX50, and finding someone who can remember the shortcuts in that box is kinda tough!
 
I'm pretty sure /U in a spam can is the easiest form of flying out there. Vectors then follow the ILS down.
 
Flying GPS aint that big of a deal if you can fly a ILS, VOR, LOC, etc.

I wouldnt worry about paying more for a plane just to have a /G trainer
 
Anyone know the difference between a GPS X, Y or Z approach?
 
I agree with everyone who said that flying GPS approaches is not difficult in itself. As Ron hinted, the hardest thing about flying with a WAAS GPS is learning the box well. If you can find a CFII that really knows the 480, do your training with him in your usual plane. If not, you might be better off learning /A and then doing the transition later when you have a good 480 instructor, or learn it on your own (which can be done but is very time consuming and will delay you getting your ticket if you do it that way).

And when you're ready to learn the CNX-80, whether you have a good transition CFII or not, join the GNS480users Yahoo group and order Keith Thomassen's book on the unit. I think the latest edition talks about every quirk and subtle gotcha you're likely to run into. The problem with the 480 isn't that it's hard to use, the problem is that even when you understand how it works, there are exceptions to just about every rule. Those exceptions are apparently engineered into it to make it easier to use, not to make it user unfriendly. But if you don't know about them, they can bite you, and it might just happen when you're in the clag (BTDT).
 
Thanks for advice on Keith's book. (have that) And the Yahoo Group (know of it, but not monitoring the signal)
 
NineThreeKilo said:
Flying GPS aint that big of a deal if you can fly a ILS, VOR, LOC, etc.

I wouldnt worry about paying more for a plane just to have a /G trainer
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Already in a good deal on a Skylane with the 480 ($110/hr wet on tach)
 
A case can be made that you'll never be a better pilot than when flying the plane in which you completed your IR training, so consider that in your thought process. OTOH, the RNAV approaches are a tiny little part of the entire training process, so if the cost spread between the two planes is mega-bucks, the cheaper plane could be worth a hard look. Ease of scheduling, convenience of location, other logistics will also require some noodling.
AggieMike88 said:
Already in a good deal on a Skylane with the 480 ($110/hr wet on tach)
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If you're mind is unpolluted by knowing how the 430/530 works, the GNS480 is *NOT* harder to learn. It's just different and as far as I am concerned, a superior interface for IFR operations. Flying an approach is pretty much after setting your destination airport (either by entering a flight plan or just going D-> DEST) and pushing the PROC button to pick the approach and initial fix you want. After that it is just following the purple line. The unit will warn you at 500 feet and the MAP and sequences automatically into the missed without any additional button pushing.
 
I did my IFR in a /A Archer. I then went to the Mooney, which was /G. GPS approaches are easy to do, but I didn't get any transition training into the GPS aspects, and I will say I had a couple of early on instrument moments where my lack of familiarity with the GPS became obvious to me. I reverted to what I knew, which was /A, and worked out fine. Of course, the Apollo unit in there was junk.

I'd say it's pretty much a 6/half-dozen sort of deal. If you think the 182 is what you're going to fly and the extra cost isn't going to break you, there's probably a lot to be said for being intimately familiar with one plane. OTOH, neither of these planes are really hard to fly. They're both slow, forgiving, etc.
 
And the X Y Z nomenclature isn't unique to GPS approaches. It's inserted any time there are multiple straight-in approaches to the same runway such that the approaches wouldn't have unique names anyhow. (It's not needed on non-straight in approaches because they can just give them names like VOR-A, VOR-B, ...). For example, DTW has some ILS approaches with Y and Z in their names.
 
Sam D said:
To add on to what Ron posted, there is something special about going missed, pulling up the gear, making sure you're climbing correctly, communicating with ATC and then pressing some wrong button to have the GPS do something totally unexpected. For some reason, it's difficult to replicate this state of systems anarchy in the comfort of a simulator!
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Actually, I find it's not hard at all to replicate such errors in the sim -- their fidelity to actual operation is usually very good. The problem is finding an instructor who knows the common errors people make with that particular GPS and can go through how they occur and what to do to fix it if you make that error.
 
skidoo said:
Anyone know the difference between a GPS X, Y or Z approach?
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It's a labeling thing. Sometimes there are multiple approaches of the same basic type to the same runway, and they use the X, Y, and Z to distinguish them. Look at Pittsburgh, for example. There are both RNAV(GPS) and RNAV(RNP) approaches to many runways. Since the book phraseology for RNAV approaches is "Cleared RNAV runway 24 approach," not "Cleared GPS runway 24 approach" (which applies only to an approach titled "GPS RWY 24," and those are going away), and not "Cleared RNAV(GPS) runway 24 approach." There are also some runways which have both WAAS and non-WAAS GPS approaches with different ground tracks, so both approaches are RNAV(GPS), and but they have to specify which one they mean.

So, they put X's, Y's, and Z's in the title so the controller is telling exactly which approach, e.g., "Cleared RNAV Yankee runway 24 approach" so you know it's the WAAS RNAV(GPS) Y RWY 24, not the RNAV(RNP) Z RWY 24, and not the non-WAAS RNAV(GPS) X RWY 24 approach.
 
flyingron said:
If you're mind is unpolluted by knowing how the 430/530 works, the GNS480 is *NOT* harder to learn. It's just different and as far as I am concerned, a superior interface for IFR operations.
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The 80/480 is significantly more sophisticated than the 430/530 -- more like the big iron FMS's than the other light plane GPS units. It's not "harder" to learn, but there is more to learn and it is less intuitive, so it will take longer to learn than a 430/530, and there is less training transfer from other units if you're transitioning rather than learning your first GPS.
 
I have a G1000, and did my IFR training on it. I would assume my experience with the G1000 can be applied to other units doing the same thing in terms of navigation. What I have found is that learning it is the easy, but forgetting what you learned is even easier. I practice and review the things I do not do often, such as approaches, at least once every month, just to refresh my mind. Even then there are things I have totally forgotten about the unit, and so part of my "nonflying" routine is the read through my books and the guide on the unit and occasionally play with the simulator.

The complexity of these units, and the way they are set up seems to allow for many ways to skin a cat, which is fine, but also makes it easy to become less than proficient really fast.
 
For the comment about my situation and the 80/480 box, I do have about 50-60 hrs flying behind a 430, but this was VFR only and not terribly deep into that system other than a simple fligjt plan and Direct To.

The 80/480 in the Skylane has been where more of my long distance experience is and digging a bit deeper into how I would use for IFR flying.

Wayne's comment about comparing the cost delta to what it's worth to have the primacy experience in the aircraft I would more likely fly IFR is something to consider and a viewpoint I didn't think about yet. Thanks for that.
 
Ron Levy said:
It's a labeling thing. Sometimes there are multiple approaches of the same basic type to the same runway, and they use the X, Y, and Z to distinguish them. Look at Pittsburgh, for example. There are both RNAV(GPS) and RNAV(RNP) approaches to many runways. Since the book phraseology for RNAV approaches is "Cleared RNAV runway 24 approach," not "Cleared GPS runway 24 approach" (which applies only to an approach titled "GPS RWY 24," and those are going away), and not "Cleared RNAV(GPS) runway 24 approach." There are also some runways which have both WAAS and non-WAAS GPS approaches with different ground tracks, so both approaches are RNAV(GPS), and but they have to specify which one they mean.

So, they put X's, Y's, and Z's in the title so the controller is telling exactly which approach, e.g., "Cleared RNAV Yankee runway 24 approach" so you know it's the WAAS RNAV(GPS) Y RWY 24, not the RNAV(RNP) Z RWY 24, and not the non-WAAS RNAV(GPS) X RWY 24 approach.
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Thanks, That is sort of what I thought, but wanted to hear it from others. I fly a Non-WAAS and sometimes there is only one GPS approach which is WAAS. I believe that I could fly that approach but only to the LNAV or Circling minimums.
 
Ron Levy said:
The 80/480 is significantly more sophisticated than the 430/530 -- more like the big iron FMS's than the other light plane GPS units. It's not "harder" to learn, but there is more to learn and it is less intuitive, so it will take longer to learn than a 430/530, and there is less training transfer from other units if you're transitioning rather than learning your first GPS.
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I believe that's what I said. It's only less intuitive if your intuition is polluted by the horrific interface on the 530. Tell me how obvious the 530 is when people still think they need to ACTIVATE the approach.
 
flyingron said:
I believe that's what I said. It's only less intuitive if your intuition is polluted by the horrific interface on the 530. Tell me how obvious the 530 is when people still think they need to ACTIVATE the approach.
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Nothing mysterious about "Activate" if you read the manual:

500W_zps3a7104ab.jpg
 
aterpster said:
Nothing mysterious about "Activate" if you read the manual:
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I think he's not referring to the "mystery" of how to activate and what it does, but the "mystery" of people thinking they have to manually activate the approach every time instead of letting it self-activate upon reaching an approach fix.
 
Yes, it's easy if you learn it or read the manual. I was just demonstrating the UNINTUITIVE confusion in the 430 that the 480 doesn't even have.
 
flyingron said:
Yes, it's easy if you learn it or read the manual. I was just demonstrating the UNINTUITIVE confusion in the 430 that the 480 doesn't even have.
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That's what manuals and training are all about.

The message in the true Garmin IFR navigators, is that "Activate" is not to activate the approach but to make it the active flight plan if you desire that rather than progressing through your existing en route or STAR flight plan to the IAP's flight plan.

By TSO spec, WAAS or non-WAAS, the approach function is self-activating; always.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I think he's not referring to the "mystery" of how to activate and what it does, but the "mystery" of people thinking they have to manually activate the approach every time instead of letting it self-activate upon reaching an approach fix.
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As I responded to Ron, "Activate" is a flight plan function in any case. The pilot cannot activate the approach sensitivity, alerting, and integrity phase of the approach flight plan. That is always automatic, whether WAAS or non-WAAS.

The pilot can, of course, select CDI mode 0.30, but that does not cause the navigator to go into Approach mode.
 
aterpster said:
That's what manuals and training are all about.

The message in the true Garmin IFR navigators, is that "Activate" is not to activate the approach but to make it the active flight plan if you desire that rather than progressing through your existing en route or STAR flight plan to the IAP's flight plan.

By TSO spec, WAAS or non-WAAS, the approach function is self-activating; always.
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The nice thing about the 480, though, is that there is a function for doing that which applies regardless of whether you're adding an approach, an airway, or just a waypoint. Whenever you want to make the modified flight plan the active one, you just EXEC it.

I thought what Ron was getting at is that people who are new to the 480 assume that you have to do something different when making an approach part of your flight plan. You don't. Even if the concept is basically the same as in the Garmin line, the buttonology is simpler. (In some respects, anyway.)
 
azure said:
The nice thing about the 480, though, is that there is a function for doing that which applies regardless of whether you're adding an approach, an airway, or just a waypoint. Whenever you want to make the modified flight plan the active one, you just EXEC it.

I thought what Ron was getting at is that people who are new to the 480 assume that you have to do something different when making an approach part of your flight plan. You don't. Even if the concept is basically the same as in the Garmin line, the buttonology is simpler. (In some respects, anyway.)
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As nice as the 480 may be (I know nothing about it) it is no longer made. Well, neither is the 500W series, but all the products made designed by Garmin work very much the same, which is nice for transition.
 
Garmin didn't make the 480. Apollo did. Yes it's not made anymore. Garmin hasn't a clue.
 
flyingron said:
Garmin didn't make the 480. Apollo did. Yes it's not made anymore. Garmin hasn't a clue.
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That's too bad you feel that way. I think many of you 480 folks are a cult of sorts.

Garmin has made it big time. Apollo did not.

Wasn't that some UPS folks originally?
 
aterpster said:
That's too bad you feel that way. I think many of you 480 folks are a cult of sorts.

Garmin has made it big time. Apollo did not.

Wasn't that some UPS folks originally?
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I thing that's backwards. UPS acquired or merged with Apollo and Garmin eventually swallowed them up. Garmin bought UPS to acquire WAAS technology (the 480 was the one and only WAAS GPS/MAP/Com for several years) and eliminated a serious competitor at the same time. Once the 480 was rebranded as a Garmin product Garmin pushed the 430/530 heavily over the 480 in all of their marketing efforts and surprise, surprise the 430 outsold the 480 significantly and was eventually dropped from the product line. While it's far from perfect and will eventually be eclipsed by products like the Garmin GTN series and/or Avidynes IFD440/540 it is a far more capable device than Garmin's 430 and could have been even better had Garmin been willing to finish it's development.

AFaIK, the main problem at Apollo and UPS-AT was insufficient capitalization coupled with the financial burden of being the first to put a sophisticated WAAS GPS through the burdensome FAA certification process.
 
flyingron said:
Garmin didn't make the 480. Apollo did. Yes it's not made anymore. Garmin hasn't a clue.
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From my perch it is a matter of keeping and expanding on the same or similar operating philosophy. The 400W/500W, G1000, G3000, and G5000 are easy transition paths.
 
aterpster said:
From my perch it is a matter of keeping and expanding on the same or similar operating philosophy. The 400W/500W, G1000, G3000, and G5000 are easy transition paths.
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Of course it is.

It's the same old, same old. "What I like is great; everything else sucks."

Politics. Religion. Life choices. High wing or low wing. Paper or EFB. Foreflight or Wing-X. If we give anything else any credit, we feel it diminishes ourselves. So we flame objects (which, of course are smart enough not to care) and people and start wars.

It's funny how we pilots think we're somehow different than others.
 
I'm with Wally. Given the demonstrated resistance of the average pilot to obtain proper training for different airplanes or systems (just read the posts here about "I don't need an instructor to learn to fly a Warrior even if I never flew anything but a Cessna 150 before" and the like), looking at the big picture, the more positive training transfer from one to the other, the better.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Of course it is.

It's the same old, same old. "What I like is great; everything else sucks."
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I never said that. I just was initially responding to an unfounded statement by CapnRon that the 480 had a non-intuitive interface when a pilot comes here having never flown a GPS approach in his life. My counter was that starting from scratch (i.e., having not been encumbered by Garmin's rediculous interface on the 430) the 480 is NOT difficult to learn.
 
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