Commencing a GPS approach from a fix other than the FAF

Roy Smith wrote:

In article ,
Sam Spade wrote:


Roy Smith wrote:

"Chris Quaintance" wrote:



Hi Folks-

Please forgive what is probably a simple question regarding GPS
approaches. I am new the the /G world. I was out flying my 182P today
to do some practice approaches. The airplane is equipped with a GNS480
and I have a Garmin 296 on the yolk. I was buzzing around NW of the
Salinas airport on vectors and was told to expect the GPS13 approach as
I requested. So far, so good. Fight plan entered into the 480 and the
296, approach loaded on both.

Here's the approach:
http://www.naco.faa.gov/d-tpp/0701/00363G13.PDF

NorCal cleared me direct EWTOF at 3200, cleared for the approach. When
looking at the approach on both the 480 and the 296, it seemed to
commence at UBBEP rather than EWTOF.


Yeah, right, you got a bum clearance. I had a similar experience not long
ago and wrote about it here (http://tinyurl.com/yt8vkn). It's pretty
common.

The problem is that while from the point of view of somebody sitting in a
dark room watching blips move around a screen, it's a perfectly reasonable
thing to have you do, the software in the GPS wants you to either start the
approach from an IAF, or get vectors to final. It would be nice if
controllers gave clearances that were flyable, but the often don't, and
then you're struggling to figure out how to tell the GPS to do something it
doesn't want to do.

Roy,

This handling is now approved and is no problem whatsoever with a Garmin
400 or 500.

Is it with the 480?


At least with the software rev we've got, it is. When you select an
approach, the only things that come up in the menu are Vectors and all the
IAFs. I believe you can fake it out by looking on the approach plate,
figuring out which IAF you can select that gives you a route including the
specified IF, load that up, then go into FPL mode, scroll down to the IF,
and do -D- to that. That's a lot of fumbling, looking, and button-pushing
to do at a busy time of the flight.

Yes, but once you select one of the IAFs and it loads the approach into
the active flight plan, aren't all of the waypoints then available for a
direct-to operation?


Matt