On Sun, 1 Jan 2006 23:25:02 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote:

In a previous article, (Roy Smith) said:
OK, that's the long essay. If you're looking for a quick sound bite,
I'd say get the 480, couple it with an SL-30, and pass on the fancy
xponder.

That's great information. I'm going to pass that "long essay" on to our
other club officers.

Thanks.


Paul, I am in the same boat as Roy with the 480. I fly several
different planes with all kinds of different avionics in them
including the KLN 90b, 530, 480 and the 430 and I can tell you that I
like the 480 hands down. We have a citation that has the 480 in it
and it acts almost like the FMS. I am not going through all of the
features again, which Roy did a good job of, But I will say that it
does have a lot of bells and whistles that, if you are a button
pusher, you will love. The one thing that I absolutely love about the
480 is the fact that if ATC gives you some insane holding procedure
that is not published and they have you scratching your head trying to
figure out exactly what this hold looks like, you can actually punch
the direct to and select the VOR and then on the submenu, you can
select HOLD. Once on that screen, it will ask you what radial and
then if it is a right or left. Once you hit enter, it will draw the
hold for you on the screen and if your autopilot is up for the task,
it will even fly it for you.

Roy had commented on the remote transponder. We have two transponders
and because the 480 has the ability to run a remote, this frees up the
panel for something else or if you don't have room on the panel then
you always have the option of putting it in a remote location.

BTW, I don't know if you know it or not, but you can download the
simulators for the 430, 530 and the 480 off of Garmin.com's web site,
so you can try all the units on your computer.

Scott D.