Steve S wrote:
I was flying a practice approach today and loaded the approach (Full
approach GPS 20 at RUQ, Rowan County, NC) into my Garmin 300XL. I flew the
approach from initial fix to the final fix but the approach never armed and
consequently never activated. The approach showed as active on the route
page but the annunciator light (arm or active) never lit. The message page
said the approach was not active.
Has anyone experienced this before?

Just add it to the list of human/GPS interface mysteries. Undoubtedly there is
an answer to your question, but you might never figure it out. It seems with the
current crop of units you can memorize the whole user manual, play with the
simulator 'til you're blue in the face, and it can still surprise you with stuff
that doesn't work the way you think it should.

I wish they had an option to replay a sequence so you could analyze it after the
fact. Usually when stuff like this happens, I'm too busy trying to fly the plane
and get the box navigating again to do any real analysis.

I've flown the GX50, the 430, and now have the GNS480 installed. I have to say
the 480 is the most intuitive (even though the interface is highly modal) and
has produced fewer surprises than the others.

Dave