[JYO] The Garmin 496 is out!

_http://www.aopa.org/oshkosh06/060724garmin.html_ 
(http://www.aopa.org/oshkosh06/060724garmin.html)    


     
 
Today's  Feature
GPSMap 496: The first AOPA Pilot test  flight
 (http://www.aopa.org/oshkosh06/images/060721garmin.jpg) Well, the word got  
out last week that _Garmin_ (http://www.garmin.com/aviation)  would debut its 
latest handheld GPS, the GPSMap  496, at EAA AirVenture this week. But the 
editors at AOPA Pilot  already knew â because we had one of the spankin' new 
units in our hands.  Replete with loads of new features, including AOPA's 
Airport 
Directory  data for more than 5,300 public-use airports, the 496 was ready to 
go for  our trip to Oshkosh on Sunday. 
We set up  the unit in the front office of Editor in Chief Tom Haines' 
Beechcraft A36  Bonanza after takeoff on the two-leg flight from AOPA's 
headquarters 
in  Frederick, Maryland, to a fuel stop at Fulton County Airport in  
northwestern Ohio (can't be too fat on fuel going into the big show), and  on 
into 
Appleton's Outagamie County Regional Airport. The set-up was  straightforward 
â 
only four cords: the external GPS antenna (the 496 has  an integrated antenna 
as well, like previous models in the series); the  new GXM 30A "smart antenna" 
for XM WX satellite weather and radio; the  power cable to plug the unit into 
the airplane's power (and recharge the  new lithium ion battery); and the 
(very important) cord that connected the  496 to the airplane's intercom 
system, 
delivering music straight to our  headsets. Accustomed as I am to the spaghetti 
nightmare of numerous  well-intentioned cockpit toys, this amount of cordage 
seemed pretty minor.  Maybe wireless will come next, Garmin? 
Soon, I had  our pre-loaded flight plan up and displayed on the Map page; by 
the time  we were in the air five minutes, the magenta line was up and 
overlaid with  echo tops and Nexrad radar images, assuring us that our flight 
would  
escape most of the clouds and all of the nasty stuff. It was a beautiful  day 
to fly halfway across the country. METARs (aviation routine weather  reports) 
displayed graphically on the screen, and by moving the cursor  over an 
airport's METAR flag, I could see the standard abbreviated version  of the 
METAR 
right on the map. To get the full text, and TAFs (terminal  aerodrome 
forecasts) 
for those airports so equipped, you push Enter to  bring up the airport 
information page and go to the METAR or TAF  tab. 
Also by  cursoring over the airport itself, I brought up a block of quick 
info on  that airport, including icons courtesy of data from AOPA's Airport  
Directory. These icons tell if the airport has self-serve fuel, a  restaurant 
within striking range, or a courtesy car. Hitting Enter with  the airport 
highlight
ed gives you the airport information page, where you  can cycle through the 
tabs to the AOPA tab for complete FBO,  transportation, lodging, and attraction 
information. 
The screen  is the same one that's on the 396, one of Garmin's 2005 Oshkosh  
announcements, but the data displayed has been upgraded. Both terrain and  
topographical information are in 9-arc-second chunks rather than in  
30-arc-second chunks, making the detail much finer. It just doesn't look  
blocky anymore, 
whether you're looking at the background map of greens and  browns, or the red 
and yellow terrain awareness data. 
The faster  processor showed its stuff on the Panel page, Garmin's 
demonstration of  what GPS data can do when specially purposed. The Panel page 
displays 
a  groundspeed readout, a turn indicator, a horizontal situation indicator, a  
vertical speed indicator, and an altimeter derived from GPS data, plus  
distance and estimated time en route readouts. The action on these faux  
instruments with the 496's new 5-Hz processor is amazingly  smooth. 
We quickly  sorted out that our fuel stop would remain a great option, 
weather-wise  and winds-wise (the XM WX gives winds aloft as well), so it was 
on to 
the  entertainment portion of the flight. Signal strength for the XM radio  
signal is given in a bar readout similar to that you see on your cell  phone. 
We 
never had less than two bars during the flight; reception was  clear. I'm not 
sure my fellow pilots appreciated my taste in music  (country with forays 
into bluegrass), but there was a lot to choose from.  The interface is pretty 
good, though when you go to change stations, if  you hold the Enter button down 
for more than a half-second, you engage a  different function on the XM menu, 
which I did a few times before I wised  up to what was happening. 
The music  pipes into your intercom system or headset via a cord (noted 
above) into  an MP3 or other auxiliary audio jack. A soft mute feature in the 
Bonanza  kept us from mixing up music and radio calls, though we did unplug the 
 
music once we started down on descent. 
With the  unit on the aircraft power, the rechargeable battery in the 496 is  
automatically recharged. If power is interrupted, the unit gives you 30  
seconds to stop it before it automatically shuts down. If you push any  button 
during that time, the 496 will stay on and run off the battery. I  noted that a 
fully charged battery showed me more than 10 hours of running  time on the 
496's battery life indicator. 
Upon  landing at any of 668 airports currently in the 496's SmartTaxi 
database,  the little airplane icon on the unit's moving map displays onto an 
airport 
 diagram, showing your position on taxiways â or runways â for better  
situational awareness. This function had its foundation in the FAA's  
SafeFlight 21 
program that mapped the layout of 80 airports; Garmin put  its own resources 
into the effort and mapped the rest that are in the  database today. More 
airport diagrams are on the way and can be added  automatically with a database 
update on a 56-day cycle. These downloads  can be found on _Garmin's  Web site_ 
(http://www.garmin.com/) . 
All in all,  the 496 packs a lot of functionality into a familiar box. 
There's an  amazing amount of new information jammed into a faster machine â 
we 
didn't  even hit upon the preloaded automotive (driving) data for this report.  
After all, once we were tied down at Appleton, all we had to do was follow  the 
traffic to the show. 
The 496  retails for $2,795 (no word yet on any deals to be had at the show, 
but it  doesn't appear likely that price will budge for the time being). â  
Julie K. Boatman 
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