Garmin 430 rquestion- does the approach always have to be activated via "activate approach"?

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:46:19 +0100, Thomas Borchert
wrote:

Terence,

Well suppose I am enroute and approaching the SGD VOR. At this point I
am getting close to my destination and want to setup the KCCR VOR
approach which starts at the CCR IAF. If I load and activate the
approach a megenta line will immediately be drawn from my present
position to CCR. Want I want is the route SGD, CCR ... KCCR.


I see. In that case, what's wrong with loading the procedure and then
waiting with activation until passing SGD.

Not really biggie, but it seems redundant. Why am I activating? What
does it do? I just passed SGD and I'm en route to CCR with a nice
magenta line plotted between the two. Activating the approach will
redraw a magenta line from my current position to CCR.

As I said, I'm confused about what "activate" actually does. Is it
just a shortcut to get me on the approach or does it put the 430 into
some sort of magical approach mode? Or to put it another way, if I
load but don't activate, am I missing something?



Also, upon rereading the 430 manual I noticed that activating
vectors-to-final will always get you to the FAF.

One of the annoyances of VTF is that it erases all the waypoints
before the FAF. I'm not that experienced, but when ATC has given me
vectors, it's usually to a fix before the FAF. The bottom line is I
don't use VTF, it's safer to pick an IAF, and then activate the
appropriate leg manually once ATC has issued vectors onto the
published approach.


I could find no mention
of the automatic activation mentioned by someone. However, automatic CDI
switching (to VLOC) will only happen on an activated procedure, it
seems.

I'll have to read about that. I wasn't aware that the unit
automatically switches from VLOC to GPS or vice versa.