Mooney 58V as a TAA or Technically Advanced Aircraft
Our Oshkosh trip was the first real IFR cross country since we updated the panel and cockpit navigation gear this past May. I’ve taken a few moments to highlight our experiences with the upgrades in case any of you reading this has a similar desire to lighten your bank balance.
We recently installed a Garmin GTN 650 navigator and an S-TEC GPSS module in our Mooney. The GTN or Garmin Touch Navigator is the successor to their venerable GNS series of Navigators. WAAS was the primary reason for the upgrade. Additionally the KLN89B we installed in the airplane back in 2004 was getting increasingly difficult to remember how to use. Considering the airplane was going to be down for two weeks to install the new GPS unit I thought it would be an ideal time to install GPSS.
The GPSS module is an upgrade the STEC-20 autopilot we installed back in 2007. The System 20 is a turn coordinator based device that will track GPS VOR LOC but has no vertical component. It’s a simple unit and is considered an entry level autopilot. I’ve never been too happy with its ability to track on approaches preferring to hand fly them. Enroute I typically have had to use the heading bug to get it close to or adjust the course if it wanders a dot or so off.
Adding the GPSS steering module changed all of that. Combined with a WAAS enabled GPS navigator it enables the autopilot to take command input directly from the GPS unit. Regardless whether it’s departure procedures, flight plans, approaches with procedure turns or course reversal holds the little GPSS box reads the waypoint information digitally and then commands the autopilot to manipulate the appropriate servo’s flying them exactly, right out to the missed approach. There is no wandering with the autopilot anymore as it is not slaved to the CDI needle. Subsequently the CDI needle stays where it should be, centered all of the time.
The GTN650 has a big touch screen display and uses much of the programming logic that the larger G500/600 G1000 navigators use. The first and in my mind best improvement over the GNS series is the ability to flight plan by Victor Airway. I’ve been doing this in G1000 equipped airplanes and it is a real time saver. Our initial route segment on our Oshkosh trip was from KDXR to KAKR. The routing we filed was DXR CMK V39 SAX V188 LVZ V106 SEG PSB. As we were sitting on the run-up pad off runway 26 Judy started entering the waypoints using this new feature. One simply enters the waypoint and when it’s an element of the flight plan pressing the menu key will present the load airway button. Selecting this and the navigator will then present all of the victor airways that are off of the fix. Selecting the applicable airway and you’ll be asked for the exit point where you can do it again. This greatly simplifies data entry eliminating chances to slip an invalid/misspelled waypoint into the unit. The aforementioned flight plan was entered using six fixes and that a real time saver as V188 and V106 have multiple fixes and bends in the airway.
The touch screen feature is better suited to the GTN 750 and it is my belief that the 650 was not designed to be a primary radio rather the bottom of the stack radio in a 750/650 combo. When I mentioned this to Steve from Garmin at Oshkosh he got a little offended and gave Judy and I a quick tutorial of how to make use the radio. Guess what Steve was doing that we weren’t? Steve was using the knobs and buttons instead of the touchscreen. If you use it like a 430 it’s very cool.
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