by AndrewM » Tue Aug 13, 2019 7:20 pm
For the instrument rating, unless you have a particular need/mission for GPS "Precision" approaches which have vertical guidance as well, WAAS is purely a nice to have. The main advantages of WAAS (in my view!) is that you can (a) have fully coupled approaches to the autopilot pretty much all the way to the ground, and (b) precision GPS approaches have similar very low minimums to ILS approaches.
Do the airports you will use most frequently only have GPS approaches, or ILS as well? This should factor into your thinking... If they have ILS, then that is something to think about, and similarly if they only have GPS approaches, and you intend to be doing real world IFR, then WAAS makes a lot of sense.
Assuming you get a G1000 with GFC700 autopilot, (but non-WAAS) on an ILS approach you will similarly be able to have the full autopilot coupled approach and just have to focus on your airspeed. And your non-precision GPS approaches will be a few hundred feet or so higher than GPS precision approaches which require WAAS.
So as in all thing aviation... depends on your mission, budget and what you want!
For the instrument rating, unless you have a particular need/mission for GPS "Precision" approaches which have vertical guidance as well, WAAS is purely a nice to have. The main advantages of WAAS (in my view!) is that you can (a) have fully coupled approaches to the autopilot pretty much all the way to the ground, and (b) precision GPS approaches have similar very low minimums to ILS approaches.
Do the airports you will use most frequently only have GPS approaches, or ILS as well? This should factor into your thinking... If they have ILS, then that is something to think about, and similarly if they only have GPS approaches, and you intend to be doing real world IFR, then WAAS makes a lot of sense.
Assuming you get a G1000 with GFC700 autopilot, (but non-WAAS) on an ILS approach you will similarly be able to have the full autopilot coupled approach and just have to focus on your airspeed. And your non-precision GPS approaches will be a few hundred feet or so higher than GPS precision approaches which require WAAS.
So as in all thing aviation... depends on your mission, budget and what you want!