The aircraft at the school i attend has at least one sometimes two GNS430's
in each airplane. Nice little gadgets. Interface takes a bit of getting
used to (when to push the knob vs when to push enter etc...) but all in all
a very pilot friendly device. Got my PPL in a plane that did not have GPS
(well one of them had a KLN89, but i never learned to use it). Just about
finished my instrument rating, just lack a few mor hours timebuilding and
dual XC. Very handy procedures screen, push PROC, select the appropriate
procedure and it will load the procedure onto the screen, if its a GPS
procedure it will sequence automatically from fix to fix on the way in (does
not yet provide any VNAV, hear thats a future update tho) If selected
approach is a VOR/ILS overlay it will automatically load the vor/loc freq
into the com1 standby box, just a patter of flipping it up, ID'ng and
excecuting the approach. Its NO excues for not knowing how to fly withoug a
GPS, and is flat out illegal to use as a primary nav for VOR and ILS
approaches, but from what i understand it IS approaved for NDB procedures if
the AC isnt' otherwise equiped, and can legally fulfill the DME requirements
for an airplane not otherwise equiped. But its still great to see your
approach layed out on the map, including arc if needed, you just can't load
that data over to the NAVhead (well i honestly haven't tried, but since you
can't legally use it for PRIMARY nav on anything other than a GPS/NDB
approach i haven't bothered). Really nice when you can have DUAL 430s.
Load your flightplan/procedures and it will automatically crossfill that
data to the other unit, in this manner you can have your navhead slaved to
the VOR side of the GPS, have the GPS1 displaying a MiniCDI and nav data for
the current segment/leg, and the GPS2 set to the moving map. Best thing i
can recommend is to download the "Trainer" from the Garmin website and play
around with it some, it isn't full featured but does give a general gist of
how the system works. As far as the display is concerned i haven't had a
problem with it. It does autodeclutter depending on zoom, but you can
override that through three clutter modes by pressing the CLR button while
in map. Airplane is actually near bottom of screen so that you still see a
good way ahead. It does have an autozooming feature that automagically
zoomes the screen to the next waypoint, and steps the zoome down as the
waypoint gets nearer (unless you override it by zooming on your own). The
screen is a bit smallish, but considering the size of the unit the screen
quality is excellent. Good visibility in the daytime, but i find its
sometimes a bit on the bright side at night, wish it had more brightness
options, has a sensor to automatically set between Day and Night modes,
nothing in between. If you want a bigger screen the G530 is almost teh same
system as the 430 with a larger screen, but that screen doubles the needed
panel space. Color depth is also limited, not that its a major factor, just
seems that sometimes it would be great if it could colorcode terrain
contours and perform featurs seen on some competetitors products, but
overall i think the Garmin is an excellent unit to consider.




"Clyde Torres" wrote in message
.. .
"George Kornreich" wrote in message
om...
We're considering adding a GNS 430 to our panel. The hight of the
display is rather small, and Garmin tells me that the position of the
plane is fixed in the center, and can not be relocated to the bottom
of the display, which would allow the entire display, rather than only
the top 1/2 of the display to show airspace ahead. I think that in the
enroute mode, it would be nice to be able to use the entire display
for airspace ahead. But I have not actually flown with this unit, and
I'd like to know if those of you who have used it find that the
display of airspace ahead is adequate and easily visable. I realize
that zooming out can increase the area displayed, but at the expense
of detail. Thanks for any info you can provide.


George,

I think the GNS430 is a great instrument, but I also think that the
display
is too small, causing the problem that you are anticipating. Our flying
club airplane has a 430 and 420 in it, thus solving the problem, but at
great expense. I wouldn't add a 430 unless I was doing it for IFR work.
Then you're stuck with it.

I know the previous responders said they loved it, but this is my opinion.
I think the 430 display is too small.

Clyde