New Garmin 396

"Ron Lee" wrote

Handheld = not IFR approved.
Panel mount GNS 430/530 allows VOR, GPS and ILS approaches.

Hypothetical situation.

A guy is on an IFR cross country flight, in and out of IFR conditions. His
latest weather reports indicate that his destination has ceilings that might
be 1000 and 1/2 mile, but also might be better. An alternate within his
comfortable fuel range is mostly clear. His departure airport is also
mostly clear.

Halfway there, his IFR approved GPS suddenly craps out, but his 396 with XM
is doing great, and has plenty of power.

What should he do?
--
Jim in NC

Halfway there, his IFR approved GPS suddenly craps out, but his 396 with XM
is doing great, and has plenty of power.

What other IFR approved navigation equipment does he have?

If he has VOR, and there's a VOR approach at the destination, I see no
reason not to continue on and shoot the VOR approach with the IFR
certified VOR equipment on the aircraft, using the handheld GPS for
situational awareness.

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote

What other IFR approved navigation equipment does he have?

If he has VOR, and there's a VOR approach at the destination, I see no
reason not to continue on and shoot the VOR approach with the IFR
certified VOR equipment on the aircraft, using the handheld GPS for
situational awareness.

His destination and all options only have GPS instrument approaches, or all
his other IFR instruments crapped out.

What he is thinking of doing, is not telling anyone that his other stuff
crapped out, and go ahead shooting a GPS approach to high minimums, and if
the weather does not let him decide early to go visual, go missed.
--
Jim in NC

On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 03:02:32 -0400, "Morgans"
wrote:


"Jose" wrote

What other IFR approved navigation equipment does he have?

If he has VOR, and there's a VOR approach at the destination, I see no
reason not to continue on and shoot the VOR approach with the IFR
certified VOR equipment on the aircraft, using the handheld GPS for
situational awareness.

His destination and all options only have GPS instrument approaches, or all
his other IFR instruments crapped out.

What he is thinking of doing, is not telling anyone that his other stuff
crapped out, and go ahead shooting a GPS approach to high minimums, and if
the weather does not let him decide early to go visual, go missed.

Wouldn't that violate the "must report equipment malfunction that
affects navigation" FAR?

Isn't the "right" answer in this case to report the malfunction and go
to the airport which allows descent from enroute VMC and get it fixed?

His destination and all options only have GPS instrument approaches, or all
his other IFR instruments crapped out.

If all the other IFR instruments crapped out, something is seriously
wrong that needs fixing. Go to the VFR alternate. If, once VFR, the
weather at the destination allows VFR flying, then fly VFR to the
destination (assuming it is unlikely that the rest of the airplane will
fall apart, leaving the pilot clutching the 396 and an empty yoke, like
in the cartoons.

What he is thinking of doing, is not telling anyone that his other stuff
crapped out, and go ahead shooting a GPS approach to high minimums, and if
the weather does not let him decide early to go visual, go missed.

Yes, I figured. That would be an emergency procedure. This isn't an
emergency yet. Don't make it one.

Yes, it's likely that the 396 will do fine. But it may be "less than
fine" in a surprising way, since it hasn't been tested in ways the FAA
considers sufficient. I have issues with the FAA sometimes, but they
also have their good points.

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message . ..
I have issues with the FAA sometimes, but they
also have their good points.

Yeah sarcasmRIGHT/sarcasm... Tell that to all the trees that they've
directly or indirectly killed in their mountains of paperwork over the
years...

"Jose" wrote

Yes, I figured. That would be an emergency procedure. This isn't an
emergency yet. Don't make it one.

Yes, it's likely that the 396 will do fine. But it may be "less than
fine" in a surprising way, since it hasn't been tested in ways the FAA
considers sufficient. I have issues with the FAA sometimes, but they
also have their good points.

In my hypothetical situation, since his destination was 1000 and 1 mile, I
was fishing for who would (at those rather high minimums) go take a look,
and if not visual by that time, then go elsewhere.

No take-rs, I see.
--
Jim in NC

"Jose" wrote in message
. ..
His destination and all options only have GPS instrument approaches, or
all
his other IFR instruments crapped out.

If all the other IFR instruments crapped out, something is seriously wrong
that needs fixing. Go to the VFR alternate. If, once VFR, the weather at
the destination allows VFR flying, then fly VFR to the destination
(assuming it is unlikely that the rest of the airplane will fall apart,
leaving the pilot clutching the 396 and an empty yoke, like in the
cartoons.

What he is thinking of doing, is not telling anyone that his other stuff
crapped out, and go ahead shooting a GPS approach to high minimums, and
if
the weather does not let him decide early to go visual, go missed.

Yes, I figured. That would be an emergency procedure. This isn't an
emergency yet. Don't make it one.

Yes, it's likely that the 396 will do fine. But it may be "less than
fine" in a surprising way, since it hasn't been tested in ways the FAA
considers sufficient. I have issues with the FAA sometimes, but they also
have their good points.



Now here's where I don't understand the FAA's logic.

I'm building an airplane. I can put in any non-certified equipment I want to
including NAV equipment that is not new or yellowed tagged and "I" can
certify that it is up to IFR standards.

But... If I want a IFR GPS it has to be installed to the standard of the TSO
(Can't remember number).

Basicly Garmin gould build a device that derived it's information from
VOR/LOC/NDB/GS to the same standard as the 1/2/396 and I could fly IFR with
it. But because they use GPS I can't.

Morgans wrote:
What he is thinking of doing, is not telling anyone that his other stuff
crapped out, and go ahead shooting a GPS approach to high minimums, and if
the weather does not let him decide early to go visual, go missed.

The handheld doesn't have RAIM.
Shooting the GPS approach with the handheld is an invitation to disaster.

In 2200 hours of flying, I've never had a RAIM failure on my IFR GPS.
Trying to shoot an approach with a handheld, the problem is the unit
being in your scan. If it were permanently mounted and you were
familiar with it, it could work. I never do GPS approaches much anyway.
I take the ILS if I can.