How to? Jeppesen Skybound

Don’t GTN650 use plain SD card ?

Do you plan to buy data from Garmin or Jeppesen ?

You can use standard USB SD card reader. The cheapest one will do the job.

I buy NAVDATA from jeppesen and update with JDM (just as for charts).
Occasionally, I buy Garmin data (obstacles or terrain or safetaxi for examples) and update with another software called FlyGarmin.

Garmin is known for good bundles if you want several database subscriptions.

If only NAVDATA, Jeppesen is the source anyway, and Garmin only sells what they buy from them.

Dealing with Jeppesen is… what it is.

Basically:

1. Either you pay once the whole yearly PilotPak subscription for all databases, pay once, valid for all avionics in the same plane (so in your case, two GTN650 units).
2. Or you pay for each database that you want twice, one time for each unit. Either per update, or yearly subscription.

In the first case (might appear as 2 because of ******* EuroGA software bug), you’d take the version without charts, since GTN650 cannot display those. On https://fly.garmin.com/, it is a “simple” matter of:

1. Create account / log in
2. Set up your plane and its avionics with SystemID (once)
3. Buy subscription from website, fully automated. Try different countries and currencies to find cheapest price if you are so minded.
4. You are set, the subscription works immediately.
5. You initiate updates from the website, which automatically starts the FlyGarmin software (install it once, upgrade it sometimes) with the right secret parameters to download & install the stuff you selected.
6. In FlyGarmin software, basically choose the destination (what removable media), and it will download and install.

If you also use Garmin Pilot and you have a FliteStream 510 in one of the GTNs, you can also upload the database updates through Garmin Pilot (download them at home and then upload when at the plane). I have found that fiddly and fragile, but convenient when it works.

Still in first case, you can probably also get it from Jeppesen. However, they are a pain to deal with, I wouldn’t do that. The only reason to be forced to deal with them is to get their charts.

In second case (might appear as 2 because of ******* EuroGA software bug), I assume you’ll want yearly subscriptions for at least navdata. I’m not 100 % sure for GTNs, but for GNS units Jeppesen would sell the second subscription (for the same unit) at a discount, applied automatically by their website for checkout. But that was with the old website. If you do have to communicate with a Jeppesen Europe sales person, take a lot of patience. In COVID19 times, I’ve found that if you select French in the chat, you get through much faster, and you communicate through automated translation to a person reading you and writing to you in English anyway. Although, beware opening hours, you may be chatting with a North American that cannot touch your account, only email Europe people.

The downloads are tied to the SystemID of the avionics configured in the account. How they know that several units you configure as part of one plane are not installed in several planes? Probably they don’t know. Theoretically, I think the installer tells Garmin the registration of the plane it is going to be installed in when ordering them new, but

• I doubt they cross-check that against subscriptions as a matter of routine
• This does not allow them to track units that are pulled out and resold second hand

If anything, they might check that a single plane is not configured with “too much” avionics. Like more than three GPS units, more than two “main” PFDs and two backup units, that kind of things?

boscomantico wrote:

That is one of the Qs where I am looking for imput. Chosing between Garmin and Jeppesen sounds like chosing between a rock and a hard place. Any pros or cons?

At least for the “International!” nav data coverage, Garmin is more expensive than Jeppesen (≈€600 vs, ≈€500, in both cases exclusive of VAT). On the other hand we all know what Jeppesen’s customer service is like.

Jepp will give 25% AOPA discount, but you have to ask for it and sometimes they will „forget“. If you look for nav data only its still the most cost effective way. Once you have your account, you can download via JDM. I do it on IPAD with the bad elf wombat for the data transfer.

CardinalRG wrote:

Jepp will give 25% AOPA discount, but you have to ask for it and sometimes they will „forget“.

Is it 25% now? Great! It was 15% when I last renewed (in June, I think). But you’re right that they (almost always IME) “forget” on renewal.