Garmin 430W/530W first impressions

Rode back with my friend in his turbine Bonanza after the installation of a
530W/430W. We had a good chance to play with both boxes during the trip. As
before, they are very intuitive and relatively easy to operate.

The screen write rate is a lot faster than previously, and the plane
position updates more rapidly. The ability to channel the XM satellite radio
is also very nice for those long cross countries. METARS and TAFS are also
much more user friendly.

The resolution of the terrain on both units appears to be a lot higher than
previously.

One change is that Nexrad radar, traffic, and stormscope output do not
appear on the default nav page, even though this is the page most commonly
used. It was nice having the big picture view when all of this was displayed
at the same time on the standard 530.

The combination of both units is nice- the 530 for the main nav and comm
functions, with the 430 for secondary info like traffic, terrain, or
weather.

We did not do any approaches, but the King autopilot had roll steering and
automatically followed all course inputs in the flight plan.

This week we plan on doing some LNAV/VNAV approaches, as well as some holds
with the new boxes.

Again, the main thing missing is the lack of supplemental data on the main
nav page- why was this removed?

Will update after trying some approaches and holds. Overall impression- not
revolutionary, but definitely an improvement that clearly solidifies
Garmin's place as the leading avionics manufacturer.