Garmin 750 and old dudes?

B

Bob Turner

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First a caveat - I am indeed an old dude, but also I am qualified in the A-320, one of the most advanced airliners in the world with a reasonably complex navigation and flight instrument suite. I was quite good at the "magic."

What is prompting this is my belief that we have carried the magic too darn far. This belief is backed only by my resistance to actually learn these complex systems, choosing only to figure out how to talk on the radio, change frequencies, and go from A to B safely VFR.

This works only if I am the only pilot on board. the minute I stick a "qualified" pilot in the aircraft, somebody pushes something and presto - we are on the wrong frequency, or worse, one of us is on one frequency and the other some other equally useless frequency.

My big complaint runs like this: midnight, tower is closed, ATC says "Heading 250 for the intercept, maintain 2600, cleared for the approach." There is a light coat of rime on the wings and maybe a little on the windshield, and there is a kid in the back seat screaming its head off with an earblock. Worse, the pilot has to pee. One finger in the wrong spot, and guess what? Nobody is flying the aircraft; all fingers are trying to get the localizer back on the screen.

But I plan to give the avionics the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it is ridiculous to think that something like that can even happen?

So I owe it to myself to get a decent GTN-750 checkout. Brought the book home. Folks, there are knobs! I am not that far in to the study (page ix) but I note that there is a push button on the lower right that can be used as an enter button, maybe a switch between nav and com, and a flip-flop button. I have a button like that on my GTR-200s, but it is mostly for maintenance and frequency entry in memory, and I have to read my own notes before messing with it. I have set up ten of these, and still have to read my notes.

I think that I am being too quick to judge, and maybe too old to deal with quite so many different ways to do simple stuff, like dial in the tower and push the mic button. And I note that even something as simple as a five step procedure to rid the shower stall of moisture each and every darn day is starting to confuse me (lemme see, is this where I squeegee everything, or is it time for the synthetic towel?)

But maybe even an old dude can figure out how to stay out of trouble with these magic TV screens. I will read the primer, hook up the simulator, gain some proficiency, and report back.

I think I will share this between the J3 forum and the champcita forum. Small, informal, but both have really experienced pilots as participants. More much later.
 
Slowly getting used to the 750. It is only a comm/nav thing, and not a comprehensive set of flight instruments. I was not aware of that at first - I thought the G3X was part of it.

So now I am involved in a checkout with a buddy in his new 201 - a quarter-million dollar aircraft with a couple of 750-like screens and basically hard ball instruments for horizon and HSI. I really do not like the keyboard for frequency input, but with my hand firmly resting on the side of the instrument I can usually get a new frequency into whatever box I want it in.

I put a route in, using a waypoint I use for the 496 in Lat/Long format, and apparently the 750 uses minutes and seconds instead of the decimal inputs in the 496. I am now sort of aware of how to get the route on the screen. I remain skeptical.

This aircraft has no flight director! None! It has a King digital autopilot, but no way to upgrade it to the KFC version, which does have a flight director. For some reason I thought that all 201s were delivered with flight directors on their really nice (but expensive to overhaul) HSIs.

So, gang, I am learning. My student is learning that the Mooney can be flown like any other airplane if you are religious about the GUMPS check.
 
Ok, you've lit-up another "Old Dude" who thinks steam gauges are plenty adequate for VFR flight.

I sometimes wonder how many pilots have actually mastered their electronic instrument panels, drivers their dash boards, or generally how many folks really understand their phones. My experience is that all this stuff has hundreds of whiz-bang options and I only need three or four but can't separate them out from the confusion.

We rented a car recently. My wife has a degree in Information Technology and has worked for years doing software customer service. While I drove, she spent 1.5 hours with the car manual trying to link her phone to the car. Never did get it to work and it irritated her greatly.
 
I am like your wife - my Masters says "Applied Physics and Information Systems." My first real career involved programming in Fortran, Assembly, Machine, and ones and zeroes. I was able to manipulate images, and was in on the initial work of Cosine Transforms for TV signal compression. I programmed simulated Viterbi and Reed-Solomon decoders. I was the original technical guy for my airline's fleet of brand new 737-300s with glass cockpits, back when they thought pilots should have extra jobs to bring them up to a 40 hour workweek.

Yet I am baffled by this new stuff. The Stearman guys bring their iPads and fancy mounts just to do pattern work. I don't know about most folks, but I stay plenty busy looking out the window trying to visualize where everybody is, and cannot imagine looking away from that to study an iPad.

Now I am out in the cold - the only guy in my group that does not wander around the airport with an iPhone under his nose - or worse, shoving it in front of others to see the latest inane photo of the grandkid eating ice cream or whatever.

But I am determined to master the G3x/750 cockpit. I am halfway there, and truly unimpressed.
 
Airbus was lots simpler. Someday I will have to tell you about my 15 minute oral for the type rating.
 
I realize I'm probably late to this thread, but I have a few thousand hours with the Garmin 750. The trick to learning it is that Garmin has made a simulator for it for the iPad. Messing around with it that way is by far the easiest way to learn it. You can give it a course, speed, and heading, and fly approaches, etc.
 
We are still working at it. We are successful about 75% of the time. The owner hired a Mooney expert for a while - not at all sure that was the cure.

I think the major problem right now is that we cannot tell at a glance exactly what is happening. An annunciation panel that verifies the mode would really help. The autopilot has a very small dimly lit annunciation of sorts, but it is not really helpful.

Things I think we need to know:

Are we in heading mode, or nav? Is altitude hold on? Are we armed for an approach? Is the glide slope armed?

Right now, the only real hint we have that we are on a coupled approach is when it pitches to follow the glide slope.

We are currently doing all this VFR, so my head is outside the cockpit. I need to know what is going on with a quick glance.
 
What autopilot is in the Mooney? Sounds more like an autopilot problem than a 750 problem.

I’ve noticed that every airplane that I’ve flown with a 750 (mostly Citations) has a different unique interface with whatever autopilot happens to be in the airplane and which Garmin accessories were chosen to go with the installation and need tribal knowledge to know how they talk to each other.

Do you have pictures of the Mooney panel?
 
I can probably get one. From memory it is a King TSA-150 - the lowest, cheapest King - with no flight director output.

I think we have successfully talked the owner out of a $6000 engine analyzer upgrade (it already has digital EGT and CHT on all cylinders and digital fuel quantity/flow indications. Hideously complex for a four cylinder Lycoming.

Hoping to figure out an autopilot upgrade that has a flight director output and a decent annunciator panel. Not my field of expertise.
 
The mode annunciation of an autopilot is an autopilot thing....

I'm a huge proponent for all-cylinder engine condition indicating instrumentation, sounds like he has that already....

I'd take that 6k and look at a Garmin GFC500 autopilot. I personally haven't flown one, but I've heard from plenty that it's a very nice autopilot, with all the modern autopilot features.
 
I will look into it. I suppose my eyesight is not as good as the average pilot in his 20s, so maybe an Airbus size annunciiator panel is a pipe dream.

Edit: $9000 prior to installation cost. I think you need a glass instrument like the G5 to make it work. And I am not clear on mode annunciation.

The factory suite on the early J models was quite good - we had a really nice flight director, and, while no GPS, there was never any question about what was armed or coupled. Only problem was the limited life of those expensive gyros.
 
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I'm not informed on what the Garmin will drive with.

My Mooney had been modernized circa early 2000s, so I'm not familiar with the original gauges. The Stec autopilot I had in it did a nice job, I knew what mode it was tracking.
 
S-Tec is what I would have looked at first, but surely there have been advancements in the art. Looks to me like $25 grand no matter what, counting a difficult installation job.

I really am spoiled, having flown the best available at any price, and getting paid for it. I did an autoland once each group of flights, and always tried to do an autopilot-free leg between PHX and TUS or LAS. Best job ever.
 
Tangogawd said:
The mode annunciation of an autopilot is an autopilot thing....

I'm a huge proponent for all-cylinder engine condition indicating instrumentation, sounds like he has that already....

I'd take that 6k and look at a Garmin GFC500 autopilot. I personally haven't flown one, but I've heard from plenty that it's a very nice autopilot, with all the modern autopilot features.
Click to expand...

The GFC is nice, but to make it cheaper for garmin to modify it for many aircraft it is VERY GPS based, ie if it looses GPS signal at ANY point it will not track anything, including ground based signals like a VOR/ILS, so if you’re past the FAF on a coupled ILS approach and it looses GPS signal it will kick the AP OFF.
 
Does it look like this?

It looks like the mode annunciations are on the digital screen of the autopilot unit itself. Maybe it is too dim in daylight to read it or the screen is burned out?


IMG_0841.webp
 
If you are going to upgrade, the S-Tec 3100 is a pretty darn nice autopilot!

Bob Turner said:
S-Tec is what I would have looked at first, but surely there have been advancements in the art. Looks to me like $25 grand no matter what, counting a difficult installation job.

I really am spoiled, having flown the best available at any price, and getting paid for it. I did an autoland once each group of flights, and always tried to do an autopilot-free leg between PHX and TUS or LAS. Best job ever.
Click to expand...
 
Looks like double the price of the Garmin - it better be good!

Yes, that is the annunciator panel we have. We cannot see the modes in the daytime without extraordinary effort, and as far as I can tell, there is no “Arm-Capture” sequencing. I think it just tells us what button we pushed last. Not really helpful.

But then, it is the cheap version - no flight director capability at all. Even the factory Mooneys had that.
 
JackC said:
The GFC is nice, but to make it cheaper for garmin to modify it for many aircraft it is VERY GPS based, ie if it looses GPS signal at ANY point it will not track anything, including ground based signals like a VOR/ILS, so if you’re past the FAF on a coupled ILS approach and it looses GPS signal it will kick the AP OFF.
Click to expand...

Yes, BUT, my understanding is that it still works in HDG, VS, IAS, and ALT hold modes.... Which is just fine for me. My Mooney Stec didn't track GS, and it was awful at ILS and VOR in Gusty conditions.... Which is every time you shoot an approach in weather, so I just used heading anyways. At work, flying jets, I hardly ever do fully coupled approaches..... Seems ATC likes to slam dunk me or vector at angles that the autopilot was not designed for.

I'm slowly building my C180 to be IFR.... And I'm not installing a VOR/ILS receiver.
 
Doing a full coupled approach and auto land is not as easy as it sounds. I agree - in the Midwest, even at midnight in horrible weather, ATC would dump us in above the glide slope. We would adjust the speed when we saw that coming.

you have to get all the autopilots engaged and be below the glide slope for full capture.

One of the most interesting - There was a discontinuity in the ground just before the approach lights. The 737-300 started its flare, and right in the middle of it, decided it wanted me to fly. Nice landing, but a real lesson - do not let the automatic stuff lull you into complacency.
 
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