I’ve been flying with the EMM-35 for about 45 hours now, and visited Arnav a few days ago, and thought I’d share some things I learned and give some opinions.
-
Despite the installation hassles, I’m really glad I have the EMM-35. I normally run LOP and figure the EMM-35 will pay for itself (about $6k installed) in three years. It also gives me much better range. One can run LOP without it, but at perhaps a higher risk.
-
The fuel-to-destination is based on a direct route, not your flight-plan route. Normally, this is maybe not too different. I would like to pursuade Arnav to change this to the flight-planned route.
-
The latest software is a modest, but important, improvement over the initial version. Some bugs are fixed and a few features added. The current version is I think an “engineering” release and they are working on something more like a “production” release.
-
The EMM-35’s OAT indication was six or seven degrees F high. Turns out that it needs to be calibrated and this can be done easily through the diagnostic/setup menu (talk to Arnav). In the meantime, naturally, use the other OAT indicator in the plane.
-
The Arnav folks read this forum, but for obvioius reasons they can’t respond at all.
-
The Arnav folks would like to please us owners. And they also have to please Cirrus, the FAA, and the NTSB, on the ICDS-2000 alone.
-
My experience with the Arnav folks was that they were open, direct, friendly, intelligent, and generous with their time. They listened to my suggestions, explained why they built the unit the way they did, and the regulatory constraints they were under. I don’t mean to excuse their mistakes, especially the installation instruction errors on the EMM-35.
-
The ICDS-2000 has a heater behind the screen in case the temperature is too low for the LCD screen.
-
If you add the engine recording PC Card and it is not formatted correctly, it can cause the ICDS-2000 to lock up and do weird things in flight. Normally, the card is shipped formated, but mine apparently wasn’t. There is a diagnostic/setup feature to format the card.
I figure I might have my SR22 for another ten or twenty years. There is only one Cirrus customer service department, very few service centers, and few avionics suppliers. This means that I have a strong interest in nuturing the relationships I have with all these folks and not irritating them. We all have faults. Cirrus isn’t perfect, Top Gun isn’t perfect, and neither is Arnav. But over the years, I want to help them, perhaps only in a small ways, do better, not tear them down.
As more a/c are delivered and there are more pilots with direct experience with the ICDS-2000, it appears that more people value its large screen. The number and fervor of the complaints with the unit seem to be descreasing, especially among pilots who have more than a few hours with it. It has its faults, to be sure, but it is improving and it is pretty darn good right now. Unlike the Garmin’s, it gives me valuable terrain and obstruction information. Also, it helps me navigate through complex airspaces without having to look at a paper map or twiddle knobs to find the airpspace vertical limits. (I always have the paper charts as well and when I approach airspaces, I make a cursory check to see that they agree).
I’ve been flying with the EMM-35 for about 45 hours now, and visited Arnav a few days ago, and thought I’d share some things I learned and give some opinions…
Robert,
Good summary.
One nifty (but undocumented) feature of the fuel-computing system is that the software “knows” that on occasion, a pilot will forget to “tell” the system that the airplane was refueled before takeoff. This error becomes obvious in the air, because the “REM” (remaining fuel) shows substantially less than it should. If, during flight, you then tell the system that you have “FULL” fuel, it automatically deducts the fuel used since the last startup.
There are other such nuggets buried in the system; more’s the pity that they are not (yet) properly documented.
Regarding the data recording capability: I didn’t know whether the recorded data “rolls over” the oldest records (FIFO) when the buffer becomes full (10,000 records, or about 166 hours of operation if you set the system to record 1 record per minute). I asked, and learned that at that point, no further recording takes place. To continue recording data, you’ll need to clear the buffer using a configuration.
[Note: If the SRAM card that holds the data has the “Write Protect” switch set to ON, the system will not work – this was the case with my installation. It took some time to diagnose, but was obviously easy to fix.]
Robert, very useful report, thanks. Here are some thoughts about it – and about the 22 itself. While my 20 was in Duluth getting half a dozen little glitches fixed, and a GPSS upgrade for the autopilot, I had the chance to do extensive demo flying in the 22. Various observations:
- On the Arnav, I completely agree that the more you’ve used it, the more valuable you’re likely to find it. The large screen, and the convenient placement, make it tremendously valuable for orientation. Of course the Garmin 430s are great, but I rely most of the time on the Arnav for the big-picture of what’s going on.
Going around some thunderstorm areas, I found the stormscope display a big plus. Dream would be real-time radar overlays too.
-
Met some Arnav people at Oshkosh, and agree that they had a friendly, open, what-can-we-do-to-improve attitude. I HOPE this continues to be reflected in product – “continues” reflecting the existence of engine monitoring.
-
The MAIN Arnav improvement I’d like to see, as I told the guys at Oshkosh, was a pretty obvious one: an ability to display something like a sectional chart, with relative elevations. The Garmins don’t do this at all. The point-elevations on the Arnav are a help (except for the strange cases where they’re inaccurate). But sectional display would be tremendous. Eg: I was flying out of Casper, Wyoming, toward Duluth, and had to thread my way through a lot of valleys. I had a sectional on my lap (as I usually do) to see where the valleys were, but it would have been nice to see them, not just the highest peaks, on Arnav.
-
Engine monitoring sounds great, and I’ll probably sign up too. BUT I think it’s of more compelling practical importance with the 22 than the 20, simply because (segue to SR22 section) fuel consumption is so much greater in the 22. With the 20, I almost never run short of fuel before I have to land for some other reason (passsengers need relief). I found fuel management more of an issue with the 22.
-
22 impressions: Fast!! But even more dramatic, IT CAN CLIMB!!! If I were going to continue to be based in the West, I’d look for some way to afford it. Not a HINT of overheating problems on fast cimbs with heavy loads on hot days.
-
Operations on the 22: slightly more complex, for obvious reasons (rudder trim; manual leaning). It seems to me that it requires about 5kts higher speed in the approach to feel comfortable – 85kts slowing to 80, rather than 80kts slowing to 75 with the SR20. Otherwise, no different or harder to operate, I thought. To my surprise, slowing down from 175-kt cruise seemed a non-issue. With a power cut and holding altitude, it slowed right down.
Thanks for the report, jim f.
I’ve been flying with the EMM-35 for about 45 hours now, and visited Arnav a few days ago, and thought I’d share some things I learned and give some opinions.
- Despite the installation hassles, I’m really glad I have the EMM-35. I normally run LOP and figure the EMM-35 will pay for itself (about $6k installed) in three years. It also gives me much better range. One can run LOP without it, but at perhaps a higher risk.
- The fuel-to-destination is based on a direct route, not your flight-plan route. Normally, this is maybe not too different. I would like to pursuade Arnav to change this to the flight-planned route.
- The latest software is a modest, but important, improvement over the initial version. Some bugs are fixed and a few features added. The current version is I think an “engineering” release and they are working on something more like a “production” release.
- The EMM-35’s OAT indication was six or seven degrees F high. Turns out that it needs to be calibrated and this can be done easily through the diagnostic/setup menu (talk to Arnav). In the meantime, naturally, use the other OAT indicator in the plane.
- The Arnav folks read this forum, but for obvioius reasons they can’t respond at all.
- The Arnav folks would like to please us owners. And they also have to please Cirrus, the FAA, and the NTSB, on the ICDS-2000 alone.
- My experience with the Arnav folks was that they were open, direct, friendly, intelligent, and generous with their time. They listened to my suggestions, explained why they built the unit the way they did, and the regulatory constraints they were under. I don’t mean to excuse their mistakes, especially the installation instruction errors on the EMM-35.
- The ICDS-2000 has a heater behind the screen in case the temperature is too low for the LCD screen.
- If you add the engine recording PC Card and it is not formatted correctly, it can cause the ICDS-2000 to lock up and do weird things in flight. Normally, the card is shipped formated, but mine apparently wasn’t. There is a diagnostic/setup feature to format the card.
I figure I might have my SR22 for another ten or twenty years. There is only one Cirrus customer service department, very few service centers, and few avionics suppliers. This means that I have a strong interest in nuturing the relationships I have with all these folks and not irritating them. We all have faults. Cirrus isn’t perfect, Top Gun isn’t perfect, and neither is Arnav. But over the years, I want to help them, perhaps only in a small ways, do better, not tear them down.
As more a/c are delivered and there are more pilots with direct experience with the ICDS-2000, it appears that more people value its large screen. The number and fervor of the complaints with the unit seem to be descreasing, especially among pilots who have more than a few hours with it. It has its faults, to be sure, but it is improving and it is pretty darn good right now. Unlike the Garmin’s, it gives me valuable terrain and obstruction information. Also, it helps me navigate through complex airspaces without having to look at a paper map or twiddle knobs to find the airpspace vertical limits. (I always have the paper charts as well and when I approach airspaces, I make a cursory check to see that they agree).
Robert,
Whilt I don’t have the engine monitoring on my Arnav yet, after a little more than 40 hours of use I think the unit is wonderful. While it might not be the best in the world, the situational awareness it provides is just plain terrific. I do a lot of instrument work here in the Northeast and the addition of the Arnav screen makes my workload so much easier to manage.
I am a little tired of folks who find it easier to complain than to actually apply first hand knowledge about the most incredable planes flying today.
Our Cirri are so far ahead of the rest of the fleet in every way. The more I fly the more I learn how much better flying is with these machines.
The only complaint I have is it takes an extra 15 to 20 minutes to preflight due to pilots on the ramp who want to talk about our planes 
The only complaint I have is it takes an extra 15 to 20 minutes to preflight due to pilots on the ramp who want to talk about our planes 
Myron,
Along those lines, it just occurred to me that for me, anyway, there is a very real (but subtle and hidden) added cost of ownership with my Cirrus than with previous airplanes.
When I owned a PA-28, C172, C182R, etc., I didn’t meet many people or make new friends specifically as a result of the TYPE of airplane I owned. Owning a Cirrus airplane costs me lots of $$$ because of the many “demo” flights I give to the many new-found friends I find everywhere I go. Some of these friends even wind up being new position holders.
Add to that the fact that I fly more often, to more places, in more weather, etc., now than before; and you can see where the cost of ownership rises by virtue of the sheer joy of HAVING this machine.
Since these costs are not to be found in most other airplanes, I believe we should band together and complain to Cirrus Design! 
When I owned a PA-28, C172, C182R, etc., I didn’t meet many people or make new friends specifically as a result of the TYPE of airplane I owned. Owning a Cirrus airplane costs me lots of $$$ because of the many “demo” flights I give to the many new-found friends I find everywhere I go. Some of these friends even wind up being new position holders.
Add to that the fact that I fly more often, to more places, in more weather, etc., now than before; and you can see where the cost of ownership rises by virtue of the sheer joy of HAVING this machine.
Since these costs are not to be found in most other airplanes, I believe we should band together and complain to Cirrus Design!
Mike,
Look at the bright side. The more you fly, the lower your per-hour costs are. If you could only fly enough hours in one year, your per-hour cost would go to zero, and your flying would be free!
-Mike “can’t do the math” Murdock
Jim, good to run across you in Niagra Falls! (two sr22s landing within a minute in NW NY!!).
(before I left on Friday, as I held short, SR20 landed in front of me in Ocean City, NJ; and upon arrival Jim F.'s SR22 landed in front of me in Niagra).
As I read the forum, and work with the airplane alot (everyday since I picked it up 2.5 weeks ago.); I think the arnav engine monitoring is not the way to go, but rather ‘replacing’ several of the instruments on the right. Over the next week, I am going to look at the JPIs, Insights etc.; but would ask the forum, what is their thinking of this versus Arnav. (a few of have used both for a while).
I think the request for added terrain awareness would be complemented by adding full approach plates.
Cheers to all, I love my new SR22.
jb
Robert, very useful report, thanks. Here are some thoughts about it – and about the 22 itself. While my 20 was in Duluth getting half a dozen little glitches fixed, and a GPSS upgrade for the autopilot, I had the chance to do extensive demo flying in the 22. Various observations:
- On the Arnav, I completely agree that the more you’ve used it, the more valuable you’re likely to find it. The large screen, and the convenient placement, make it tremendously valuable for orientation. Of course the Garmin 430s are great, but I rely most of the time on the Arnav for the big-picture of what’s going on.
Going around some thunderstorm areas, I found the stormscope display a big plus. Dream would be real-time radar overlays too.
- Met some Arnav people at Oshkosh, and agree that they had a friendly, open, what-can-we-do-to-improve attitude. I HOPE this continues to be reflected in product – “continues” reflecting the existence of engine monitoring.
- The MAIN Arnav improvement I’d like to see, as I told the guys at Oshkosh, was a pretty obvious one: an ability to display something like a sectional chart, with relative elevations. The Garmins don’t do this at all. The point-elevations on the Arnav are a help (except for the strange cases where they’re inaccurate). But sectional display would be tremendous. Eg: I was flying out of Casper, Wyoming, toward Duluth, and had to thread my way through a lot of valleys. I had a sectional on my lap (as I usually do) to see where the valleys were, but it would have been nice to see them, not just the highest peaks, on Arnav.
- Engine monitoring sounds great, and I’ll probably sign up too. BUT I think it’s of more compelling practical importance with the 22 than the 20, simply because (segue to SR22 section) fuel consumption is so much greater in the 22. With the 20, I almost never run short of fuel before I have to land for some other reason (passsengers need relief). I found fuel management more of an issue with the 22.
- 22 impressions: Fast!! But even more dramatic, IT CAN CLIMB!!! If I were going to continue to be based in the West, I’d look for some way to afford it. Not a HINT of overheating problems on fast cimbs with heavy loads on hot days.
- Operations on the 22: slightly more complex, for obvious reasons (rudder trim; manual leaning). It seems to me that it requires about 5kts higher speed in the approach to feel comfortable – 85kts slowing to 80, rather than 80kts slowing to 75 with the SR20. Otherwise, no different or harder to operate, I thought. To my surprise, slowing down from 175-kt cruise seemed a non-issue. With a power cut and holding altitude, it slowed right down.
Thanks for the report, jim f.
I’ve been flying with the EMM-35 for about 45 hours now, and visited Arnav a few days ago, and thought I’d share some things I learned and give some opinions.
- Despite the installation hassles, I’m really glad I have the EMM-35. I normally run LOP and figure the EMM-35 will pay for itself (about $6k installed) in three years. It also gives me much better range. One can run LOP without it, but at perhaps a higher risk.
- The fuel-to-destination is based on a direct route, not your flight-plan route. Normally, this is maybe not too different. I would like to pursuade Arnav to change this to the flight-planned route.
- The latest software is a modest, but important, improvement over the initial version. Some bugs are fixed and a few features added. The current version is I think an “engineering” release and they are working on something more like a “production” release.
- The EMM-35’s OAT indication was six or seven degrees F high. Turns out that it needs to be calibrated and this can be done easily through the diagnostic/setup menu (talk to Arnav). In the meantime, naturally, use the other OAT indicator in the plane.
- The Arnav folks read this forum, but for obvioius reasons they can’t respond at all.
- The Arnav folks would like to please us owners. And they also have to please Cirrus, the FAA, and the NTSB, on the ICDS-2000 alone.
- My experience with the Arnav folks was that they were open, direct, friendly, intelligent, and generous with their time. They listened to my suggestions, explained why they built the unit the way they did, and the regulatory constraints they were under. I don’t mean to excuse their mistakes, especially the installation instruction errors on the EMM-35.
- The ICDS-2000 has a heater behind the screen in case the temperature is too low for the LCD screen.
- If you add the engine recording PC Card and it is not formatted correctly, it can cause the ICDS-2000 to lock up and do weird things in flight. Normally, the card is shipped formated, but mine apparently wasn’t. There is a diagnostic/setup feature to format the card.
I figure I might have my SR22 for another ten or twenty years. There is only one Cirrus customer service department, very few service centers, and few avionics suppliers. This means that I have a strong interest in nuturing the relationships I have with all these folks and not irritating them. We all have faults. Cirrus isn’t perfect, Top Gun isn’t perfect, and neither is Arnav. But over the years, I want to help them, perhaps only in a small ways, do better, not tear them down.
As more a/c are delivered and there are more pilots with direct experience with the ICDS-2000, it appears that more people value its large screen. The number and fervor of the complaints with the unit seem to be descreasing, especially among pilots who have more than a few hours with it. It has its faults, to be sure, but it is improving and it is pretty darn good right now. Unlike the Garmin’s, it gives me valuable terrain and obstruction information. Also, it helps me navigate through complex airspaces without having to look at a paper map or twiddle knobs to find the airpspace vertical limits. (I always have the paper charts as well and when I approach airspaces, I make a cursory check to see that they agree).
- The MAIN Arnav improvement I’d like to see, as I told the guys at Oshkosh, was a pretty obvious one: an ability to display something like a sectional chart, with relative elevations. The Garmins don’t do this at all. The point-elevations on the Arnav are a help (except for the strange cases where they’re inaccurate). But sectional display would be tremendous. Eg: I was flying out of Casper, Wyoming, toward Duluth, and had to thread my way through a lot of valleys. I had a sectional on my lap (as I usually do) to see where the valleys were, but it would have been nice to see them, not just the highest peaks, on Arnav.
I completely agree and had a similar experience flying “the trench” in Canada. The president of Arnav has also flown the trench and he completely understands the value of finer grain relative terrain elevation display. They have thought about this problem, but I think just as Cirrus had to make a relatively simple aircraft to start with, Arnav had to say “no” to features at some point and make something they could ship. Here’s my wish-list for the ICDS-2000 in no particular order. I imagine that Arnav has thought of all of this before.
-
Have an optional “nearest VOR” display, like on the new Bendix/King system. This way when you talk to controllers, you can immediately say “4 to the west of the Woodside VOR” because the Arnav displays something like “4.1 W OSI (Woodside)” continuously. Wouldn’t take much screen area. Should be easy to implement.
-
Better documentation. And make it all accessible through the ICDS-2000 (in addition to on their web site and on paper).
-
Make fuel-to-destination be the flight-planned route, not the direct-to route. Should be easy, at least if they can assume you’ll make the same progress on all legs (i.e., don’t have to calculate wind vectors, which they don’t have enough information to do).
-
Have an optional display of the nearest frequencies, e.g., center, approach, airport tower, etc. The Garmins do this, but not well. What they especially don’t do well is they don’t give approach frequencies, just centers.
-
Allow user-uploadable check lists. The Cirrus check lists are terrible, IMHO. They were created by lawyers, for lawyers.
-
Emit audio warning words, like “terrain”, “airspeed”, “bank angle”, etc. The ICDS-2000 generates some warning tones, but its audio output is not hooked up in Cirrus’s. I’m not too fond of warning tones, but warning words, if they can be adjusted, are great.
-
I’m curious to see if running the display at 640x480 would make it more useful, or at least better looking. The Arnav folks have to meet FAA requirements which specify readablility from various angles and it is possible that this wouldn’t be possible at higher resolutions (at least this is what I understood from what they said, errors are mine).
-
Approach and enroute charts from the government, not from Jepessen, so that electronic updates are free. Does anyone know where the AOPA gets their scanned images of NOS charts? (I have switched to paper NOS charts since getting my SR22 and am happy with them. They are 1/3rd the price and are in a more convenient form, IMHO. Flying from Baja to Alaska, over a period of time, I accumulated way too many pounds of VFR and IFR charts, and switching to the NOS charts make it cheaper and simpler.)
-
Airport diagrams!
It would be great if some of us nerd-pilots could deveop some of these applications on PC’s and then somehow submit to the Arnav verification process for inclusion in the product. Open software development has produced some fine and reliable server products and has comingled well with proprietary software. The ICDS-2000 is a PC-104-based PC running DOS – not some weird piece of hardware.
Robert Bedichek
- Have an optional “nearest VOR” display, like on the new Bendix/King system. This way when you talk to controllers, you can immediately say “4 to the west of the Woodside VOR” because the Arnav displays something like “4.1 W OSI (Woodside)” continuously. Wouldn’t take much screen area. Should be easy to implement.
You probably know this GNS430 trick – I set Nav Page 4 so that it shows me exactly this - position to nearest VOR. I think the default is position relative to nearest airport; I leave the bottom GPS set that way. This combination is wonderful for position reporting to e.g. Flight Watch. Agreed that this type of info would be nice to have on the ICDS 2000.
- Better documentation. And make it all accessible through the ICDS-2000 (in addition to on their web site and on paper).
Great idea!
- Make fuel-to-destination be the flight-planned route, not the direct-to route. Should be easy, at least if they can assume you’ll make the same progress on all legs (i.e., don’t have to calculate wind vectors, which they don’t have enough information to do).
Another good idea.
- Have an optional display of the nearest frequencies, e.g., center, approach, airport tower, etc. The Garmins do this, but not well. What they especially don’t do well is they don’t give approach frequencies, just centers.
Again, you probably know this – there IS a way to get a nearby/likely-to-be-right approach frequency.
-
Large knob clockwise to NEAREST (keep going to the end), small knob anticlockwise to AIRPORT (if its not already there).
-
Push CURSOR to highlight nearest airport
-
Push ENT to select it
-
Push CURSOR because you’re not “Done” yet
-
Small know 2 clicks clockwise to the frequencies page - which includes the approach frequency. Select/Enter it in the normal way.
-
Select “Done?”; press ENT.
I like the rest of your comments/ideas, too.
You probably know this GNS430 trick – I set Nav Page 4 so that it shows me exactly this - position to nearest VOR. I think the default is position relative to nearest airport; I leave the bottom GPS set that way. This combination is wonderful for position reporting to e.g. Flight Watch. Agreed that this type of info would be nice to have on the ICDS 2000.
Yup, I do exactly this same thing – only challenge is juggling the 180-degree reversal when you want to make position reports. Ie, the Garmin screen is always showing BEARING TO the nearest VORs, and you have to invert that to get the appropriate RADIAL FROM that VOR. But, hey, we’re enthusiasts,we should be up to that.
Mike and Jim,
Yes, I often keep my #2 GNS 430 set to “nearest VOR” so that I can easily make these position reports. However, there are a number problems with this (one of which you mention):
-
As you say, you have to take the reciprocal of the bearing to get the radial. It is a little work, which is no big deal, but it is easy to get wrong.
-
It ties up a valuable resource, the 430’s screen.
-
The #2 GNS 430 is sometimes doing something else.
-
The display doesn’t give the name of the VOR, just its identifier. It is kind of nerdy to say “4 to the West of the Oscar Sierra India VOR”. One has to push a couple of buttons to get the name.
None of this is a big deal, but ATC can ask anytime for my position and I hate making them wait or stuttering while I correct myself because I pushed the mike button before completing the thouight leading to the response.
This is a small feature request in several ways. It is, I think, quite easy to implement. And it helps in a tiny way. It is like a cup holder in the back seat.
In contrast, fine-grain relative terrain is a big feature – harder to implement and could save a life here and there. I wonder if that fatal crash in Arizona would have been avoided if the pilot had fine-grain terrain. Anyway, to paraphrase the Klapmeier brothers, the price of his mistake shouldn’t have been death.
You probably know this GNS430 trick – I set Nav Page 4 so that it shows me exactly this - position to nearest VOR. I think the default is position relative to nearest airport; I leave the bottom GPS set that way. This combination is wonderful for position reporting to e.g. Flight Watch. Agreed that this type of info would be nice to have on the ICDS 2000.
Yup, I do exactly this same thing – only challenge is juggling the 180-degree reversal when you want to make position reports. Ie, the Garmin screen is always showing BEARING TO the nearest VORs, and you have to invert that to get the appropriate RADIAL FROM that VOR. But, hey, we’re enthusiasts,we should be up to that.
Agree on all points – why a more convenient “nearest VOR” display would be a small-but-helpful improvement, and why the sectionals would be a big-and-potentially-very-important fix.
(On the small-but-noticeable front: my 20 has the “old style” transponder, and the 22 I tried has the new, “automatic” transponder. The new transponder, for those who don’t know, automatically switches into ALT mode when the airspeed gets above taxiing range, and then automatically reverts to STBY when the airspeed goes back down. Nice! I decided that for me it wasn’t worth the maybe-$2000 upgrade price to avoid turning the Xpdr on and off at the beginning and end of each flight. But people who get the “new” model as standard equipment should be happy with it.)
Mike and Jim,
Yes, I often keep my #2 GNS 430 set to “nearest VOR” so that I can easily make these position reports. However, there are a number problems with this (one of which you mention):
- As you say, you have to take the reciprocal of the bearing to get the radial. It is a little work, which is no big deal, but it is easy to get wrong.
- It ties up a valuable resource, the 430’s screen.
- The #2 GNS 430 is sometimes doing something else.
- The display doesn’t give the name of the VOR, just its identifier. It is kind of nerdy to say “4 to the West of the Oscar Sierra India VOR”. One has to push a couple of buttons to get the name.
None of this is a big deal, but ATC can ask anytime for my position and I hate making them wait or stuttering while I correct myself because I pushed the mike button before completing the thouight leading to the response.
This is a small feature request in several ways. It is, I think, quite easy to implement. And it helps in a tiny way. It is like a cup holder in the back seat.
In contrast, fine-grain relative terrain is a big feature – harder to implement and could save a life here and there. I wonder if that fatal crash in Arizona would have been avoided if the pilot had fine-grain terrain. Anyway, to paraphrase the Klapmeier brothers, the price of his mistake shouldn’t have been death.
You probably know this GNS430 trick – I set Nav Page 4 so that it shows me exactly this - position to nearest VOR. I think the default is position relative to nearest airport; I leave the bottom GPS set that way. This combination is wonderful for position reporting to e.g. Flight Watch. Agreed that this type of info would be nice to have on the ICDS 2000.
Yup, I do exactly this same thing – only challenge is juggling the 180-degree reversal when you want to make position reports. Ie, the Garmin screen is always showing BEARING TO the nearest VORs, and you have to invert that to get the appropriate RADIAL FROM that VOR. But, hey, we’re enthusiasts,we should be up to that.
- As you say, you have to take the reciprocal of the bearing to get the radial. It is a little work, which is no big deal, but it is easy to get wrong.
:
:
:
Yup, I do exactly this same thing – only challenge is juggling the 180-degree reversal when you want to make position reports. Ie, the Garmin screen is always showing BEARING TO the nearest VORs, and you have to invert that to get the appropriate RADIAL FROM that VOR. But, hey, we’re enthusiasts,we should be up to that.
Jim/Robert,
Use the CHANGE FIELDS menu option to change TO to FROM…
Mike.
("Enthusiast"ic, but lazy).
In contrast, fine-grain relative terrain is a big feature – harder to implement and could save a life here and there. I wonder if that fatal crash in Arizona would have been avoided if the pilot had fine-grain terrain. Anyway, to paraphrase the Klapmeier brothers, the price of his mistake shouldn’t have been death.
… Robert, when I expressed exactly this thought of mine a few months ago, there have been people here around who would have killed me (verbaly) for this “speculation”. It was funny to read the bunch of speculations a few days later when the preliminary report was published.
Cheers
Wilfried
While any ideas about the Arizona crash remain speculation, let me speculate about another possibility, that of the pilot being willing to do something he normally would NOT have done because he was flying an airplane that had “high tech stuff”. I would submit that even if the ARNAV had high resolution, accurate terrain data, any non instrument rated pilot flying around mountains at night and in what was described in the NTSB preliminary report as IMC with freezing precip was in big trouble as soon as he advanced the throttle for takeoff. You simply cannot substitute high tech displays for good judgement. In fact, if the high tech displays give you enough of a feeling of safety that you will do something that you wouldn’t otherwise do then they can have a negative effect on safety.
Someday I’ll share with the group how I blundered into the only thunderstorm of my flying career by using radar to allow me to go where my eyes said I shouldn’t. High tech while great is not as great as common sense.
Incidentally I picked up SR22 #63 on 23 July. I’ve put about 30 hours on it. I’ll post my impressions of the machine (mostly excellent) in the stories section sometime in the next week.
J. Seckler SR22 #63 N1970
In contrast, fine-grain relative terrain is a big feature – harder to implement and could save a life here and there. I wonder if that fatal crash in Arizona would have been avoided if the pilot had fine-grain terrain. Anyway, to paraphrase the Klapmeier brothers, the price of his mistake shouldn’t have been death.
… Robert, when I expressed exactly this thought of mine a few months ago, there have been people here around who would have killed me (verbaly) for this “speculation”. It was funny to read the bunch of speculations a few days later when the preliminary report was published.
Cheers
Wilfried
You simply cannot substitute high tech displays for good judgement.
High tech while great is not as great as common sense.
… full stop, nothing to be added.
Keep it safe,
Wilfried