Garmin Pilot questions

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smoss
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Garmin Pilot questions

Post by smoss »

I have used ForeFlight for many years, but due to some limitations related to the GTX345r, I have recently started using Garmin Pilot. While there are definitely some things that are nice, I have not figured out a few things, despite reading the poorly done manual from cover to cover.
1- How in the world do you simply make the map go to a chosen waypoint/airport/navaid, etc.? Let's say I want to see TMBKTU, and don't know where it is, it seems the only way to find it is to tap on flight plan, enter the waypoint in flight plan, then select the icon for show the whole flight plan on the bottom of the map, or hit the direct to button. Is there really no way to just either type it and tap on it or something, or hit enter like in SkyVector? Very cumbersome to just find things for reference on the map.
2- What is the difference between flight plan, and trip plan? To file an IFR plan, seems you need to do both, but if not filing, you can have different flight plans and trip plans entered, really not understanding the difference between the two, and the manual did not help at all.
3- Why in the world is there no profile for the DA40, DA40XL/XLS for all the performance and checklist stuff? They have complete profiles for the DA40 D, DA40 F, DA40 NG, and DA42, but NOT the most common plain old DA40! Am I missing it hiding somewhere?

Thanks,
Steve
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TimS
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Re: Garmin Pilot questions

Post by TimS »

I have never had the need for item 1. I typically still use AOPA planner to scout stuff and do a preflight planning. I use Garmin Pilot in flight and for a final brief before takeoff. The closest I know off hand is to click the direct too icon at the top of the map page. Put in the target in the destination and then view on the map.

Trip planning allows you to have a multi-segment or multiple trips defined and ready for activation. The flight plan area is the active flight plan. I do not think you can actually file from flight plan; it needs to be in the trip plan because this includes all the required data.

I cannot answer the last one.

Tim
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Re: Garmin Pilot questions

Post by smoss »

Thanks Tim. Being trying to get a grasp on the whole flight plan / trip plan thing, and no matter how I do it, it is a ton more cumbersome than ForeFlight.
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TimS
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Re: Garmin Pilot questions

Post by TimS »

smoss wrote: Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:32 pm Thanks Tim. Being trying to get a grasp on the whole flight plan / trip plan thing, and no matter how I do it, it is a ton more cumbersome than ForeFlight.
I have limited use of Foreflight. For me, Foreflight is more organized around planning; e.g. find an alternate to file. Or split a trip because of fuel requirements.
While GP is more organized around use in flight and designed around executing a an inflight task. The result, if you think more about the questions or issues you get in flight in flight you tend to find the answers with GP very quickly.

The trip planning is just one of the examples; everything is organized around executing a flight. Think back to how you trained for your PPL.
You put in the plane, the starting point, the destination. Then put in the flight path. Then did a briefing. Then finished with the W&B to verify fuel requirements along with the actual W&B.

With what I recall of FF; you generally started with W&B to determine available capacity, then went onto determining how many segments you needed.

Tim
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Pilot55
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Re: Garmin Pilot questions

Post by Pilot55 »

Steve I have used Garmin pilot for many years,maybe I can help.
1.) to search for airport, go to home page, airport info,tap airport identifier in top left,tap search,input identifier,choose airport,next hit map
2.)flight plan is just the way points your choose to fly. you can save the flight plan, then recall at any time. Use the store button to store the flight plan in trip plan. Trip plan gives you more info that you would use for a cross country and filing for ifr. you can pick up your weather, fill out your ifr form, w&b and look at nav log. I use trip plan when filing IFR.
3.)I have a profile for the steam gage da40 and the supercharged da40. I will send it to you if you wish. you can setup your own using fltplan then load back to pilot. this gives you detailed flight performance if there is no profile for your plane.
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smoss
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Re: Garmin Pilot questions

Post by smoss »

Another question- Is there no way to get the VFR sectional charts with the legends, transition routes and text, etc. that is in the border area?
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Re: Garmin Pilot questions

Post by CFIDave »

smoss wrote: Sun Jun 16, 2019 11:31 pm3- Why in the world is there no profile for the DA40, DA40XL/XLS for all the performance and checklist stuff? They have complete profiles for the DA40 D, DA40 F, DA40 NG, and DA42, but NOT the most common plain old DA40! Am I missing it hiding somewhere?
I use both Foreflight and Garmin Pilot. I'm guessing that you should select "DA40 F" for the DA40-180 profile. For Garmin's G1000 PC Trainer software, there's a single version that applies to both the fuel-injected DA40-180 (including XL, XLS, XLT) and the rarer carbureted DA40F, so perhaps the same single version applies to Garmin Pilot?

The problem with these profiles (just like with Diamond's DA40 AFM) is that they don't incorporate items added via STC such as Powerflow exhaust that boost performance.

There's a somewhat similar problem with Garmin Pilot in the DA62: Garmin's built-in DA62 profile assumes a base 1999 kg 5-seater model, not the much-more-popular 7-seater with higher 2300 kg MTOW. So it's worthless for W&B calculations unless heavily modified by the user.
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Re: Garmin Pilot questions

Post by TwinStarScott »

Tomorrow evening there is a Garmin Pilot "Tips & Tricks" webinar. For those interested, here's the link to register:

https://register.gotowebinar.com/regist ... e=Digital2\
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Tim H
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Re: Garmin Pilot questions

Post by Tim H »

I have asked Garmin several times to add the DA40 to their list of aircraft profiles. Perhaps (much like the G1000 petition) if enough people ask, it will be added. It's ironic that it's not listed since I believe Garmin owns and operates a DA40.

I have found their support staff to be very helpful (gpfeedback@garmin.com).

I don't have a specific list, but there are some notable differences between the Android and Apple versions of GP.

If you are an Android user (like me) and you attend the seminar, just be aware that every feature they show might not be available on Android.
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Rich
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Re: Garmin Pilot questions

Post by Rich »

FF has several DA40 profile templates. Once applied to your particular airplane they can be easily edited in some areas, notably W&B. Filling in Empty Weight and CG are obvious requirements, but I also added a station for what I call the baggage locker. It took 30 seconds to add this. Maybe there is a provision in GP to do this? Take an aircraft that's somewhat close in form and customize it?

There are a couple of other things I changed also:

- There is provision for the max weight at any given station. These had not been filled in, so I did so.
- Somehow, for the variant supplied (MTOW/MLW increase) they have the best glide speed and angle values for the NG. So I corrected this, as best I could - it doesn't seem to allow for different glide speeds for different weights, as published in the POH.

I wouldn't expect performance figures for climb and TO to be any different than what Diamond publishes. Where would you get those numbers?
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