Garmin 430 Sim

Downloaded the Garmin simulator for the 430. Navigated my laptop all over the USA and I am starting to like the unit (the 430, I still don’t like the laptop).

The user interface is pretty decent. I would recomend playing with the sim before using the real thing. Working the buttons with the mouse is not as satisfying as turning knobs on a real unit but the explitives eminating from my mouth from time to time are probably logable as “actual”.

Anyhow, I have enjoyed the talk about the ARNAV. I think it is a decent (albeit not perfect) choice for this airplane and I think the current owners should chime with some comments about using the 430 / 430 (or 420) with the ARNAV on a regular basis. Does it work or just take up space?

By the way, my understanding is that the ARNAV has the engine monitoring built in (very cool on the sim at sun n fun, very easy to lean the engine and monitor performance) and is ready for weather uplinks across half the country. If Cirrus has not done the deeds to make this work, then perhaps ARNAV isn’t the bad guy.

Also on the ARNAV, you can split the screen up a bunch of different ways to see all kind of stuff at the same time. Terrain avoidance from a side view, you can separate lightning strikes display from weather overlays or route map, plus have the engine monitor up. I am not sure this is available on the Cirrus but it is cool and apparantly useful.

Enlightenment from those wiser would be appreciated!

Mark

Ps - To be fair, the Columbia 300’s choice of display is much better. Not $100k better but definately crisper looking with apparantly more color. (DVD anyone? You can watch the Kings show you how to do a cross wind landing before doing it yourself! Don’t fall asleep…)

Mark wrote:

By the way, my understanding is that the ARNAV has the engine monitoring built in
Err, no. I queried Cirrus about this. The ARNAV has the disgital and analog inputs ready, and the SR20 has most of the sensors (fuel-flow etc.) though there is only one EGT sensor, but the firewall connector has reserved pins for the rest, but they are not connected up.
To implement the engine monitoring will require installing the rest of the EGT sensors, connecting these sensors to the ARNAV, and installing the software.
The problem right now is apparently that ARNAV do not have working software for the ICDS2000 to do engine monitoring. What they showed at Sun 'n Fun was, I am told, just a demo, not a real implementation.

Until they actually have this working Cirrus can’t do much more.

The history on this is that Cirrus didn’t like what ARNAV proposed (based on the smaller screen implementation) and decided to do their own software, but had too many other things to do, and it never got done. With hindsight, Cirrus made some bad choices, but I understand their situation. Sometimes you have to accept that you are not going to deliver everything all at once, if you want to deliver anything at all.

The good news is that when it is ready, it will be a relatively cheap retrofit.

Mark wrote:

By the way, my understanding is that the ARNAV has the engine monitoring built in

Err, no. I queried Cirrus about this. The ARNAV has the disgital and analog inputs ready, and the SR20 has most of the sensors (fuel-flow etc.) though there is only one EGT sensor, but the firewall connector has reserved pins for the rest, but they are not connected up.

The problem right now is apparently that ARNAV do not have working software for the ICDS2000 to do engine monitoring. What they showed at Sun 'n Fun was, I am told, just a demo, not a real implementation.

Dang,

Cursed vapor ware. Never trust what they show you at a show!

The little guy behind the curtain pulling the controls and pushing buttons should have been a tip-off.