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Changing Aircraft category types on a Garmin GNS430

For Leeds EGNM, the ILS DME Y is for Cat A/B and the ILS DME Z for Cat C/D. Clearly marked as such in the Jepp plates but the GNS database shows two entries "ILS 14 LBA". Only after choosing one, a look at the legs will show that one has 335° outbound and the other 332° outbound. Not nice.

I know this is a useless reply but does it really matter if you fly, procedurally, a Cat D procedure rather than Cat A?

Most pilots will fly it so inaccurately that radar ATC will never know which one you are flying.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I know this is a useless reply but does it really matter if you fly, procedurally, a Cat D procedure rather than Cat A?

After a 4h flight, I really need to see the bathroom and a Cat D approach could just take a few minutes too long

We had a similar situation where a SID had different routes for different aircraft types (piston or turbojet). As soon as it was discovered by a complaint, the FAA re-issued the charts and split them up in the next cycle. If it is two procedures, two charts. Doesn't a complaint in the UK have any effect?

KUZA, United States

This has nothing to do with the way this is charted. Minor variations in procedures are shown on the same chart all over the world, including the US.

Jeppesen can also clearly recognize these and code them correctly in their data, since they provide data for the to variants.

The issue is that these two variants are displayed without a means for the user to distinguish between them before selection. This could be caused one of two things

  • the database does not contain a field that allows to distinguish between them (for example, category or some such)

  • Garmin does not show that data field

So I would complain to Garmin in the first place.

Of course getting the national authorities to change the charts would also solve it, but I would consider that a "workaround".

Biggin Hill

This is just the tip of a huge iceberg, in the bizzare process involved between the database monopoly holder (Jepp) and the GPS makers. For example UK Class A routes are not shown on many products, though they seems to be shown on more recent Garmin handhelds. The areas made up of lat/long coordinate strings (e.g. TMAs) were shown but the routes ("airways" in UK PPL speak) were shown as just lines, or nothing at all. I always found it bizzare that the same company could make several products, some of which shows CAS and others didn't, all the while Jepp were perfectly capable of publishing VFR charts which showed the whole lot... and all this went on for years despite loads of high profile exposures in the media and all parties denying they can fix it.

One excuse given was that a handheld was VFR only and since Class A doesn't allow VFR, it would be wrong to show it. A case of a University of Upper Warlingham PhD in logic, perhaps?

So I suspect we will get DIY ILS approaches in panel mounts, with a little popup where you select [OK] to confirm you are exempting yourself from FAR 91.175, before anybody fixes this one

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

This has nothing to do with the way this is charted. Minor variations in procedures are shown on the same chart all over the world, including the US.

Can you give me an example? The only cases I know of in the US are being re-charted.

KUZA, United States

Of course getting the national authorities to change the charts would also solve it, but I would consider that a "workaround".

Well, I for one very much disagree it is a work around. I don't think that ARINC 424 database coding supports multiple variations of a procedure, which makes it quite difficult on a manufacturer to add this.

KUZA, United States

I would guess the same must apply to any chart which shows multiple flight paths on the same page.

The GPS manufacturer (or somebody upstream of them) has to break them apart into separate procedures.

But there must be a way - look at the countless SID/STAR plates that show multiple named procedures on the same page. These are listed separately in the GPS's list of procedures.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
29 Posts
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