Preferred GTN650 settings

[Tokirbymd]

New 650. What are you’re preferred page/field settings for the different touch areas on the map and default nav fields? Have played with a few different settings for IFR work but wondering if others have tried different settings from default and why.

 

[NoHeat]

Timer to remind me, at XX minute intervals, to change tanks.

MSA (min safe altitude) shown on map page.

 

[Georgia Pilot]

On my Garmin App I love the TOD & BOD map overlays fro VNAV. I cannot figure out how to get this to display in the plane though....

 

[midlifeflyer]

I fly club and rentals and except for one with G1000 don't have any personal settings. In that context, the only GTN Settings I care about are my track-up preference and fuel timing. If it were my own airplane, I might tweak some of the map field settings, but they are limited and the situational awareness ones I care about other than the default are set in my EFB.

 

[Twin_Flyer]

On my Garmin App I love the TOD & BOD map overlays fro VNAV. I cannot figure out how to get this to display in the plane though....

They are in the Vnav pages and the altitude crossing fields on the flight plan page...

 

[Hang 4]

Fuel timer for tanks switching. Default Nav page - DTK and TRK on top of each other for partial panel approaches. (I have a G500 and that's what the DPE wants to fail). ETE to destination.

 

[David Megginson]

If you have a tablet as well, then limit the GTN to the critical stuff: ground speed, ETE to next waypoint, desired track, and actual track. You can put extra eye candy on the tablet if it's really important to you. If your vacuum system or even just the DG fails, you'll really appreciate having the track readout already up on the screen.

The other field that has the most potential safety value is GPS altitude, either on the tablet or on the GTN itself (replacing one of the track fields). Any other data fields on the GTN screen are a distraction, because too much information on display at once is as bad as -- or worse than -- too little (that's a mistake a lot of the newer avionics marketing material makes, trying to convince you that being distracted by a firehose of marginally-important extra data fields somehow makes you fly more safely; you need to be able to see the essentials in a glance, without having to waste a quarter of a second sorting them out from clutter).

 

[David Megginson]

On my Garmin App I love the TOD & BOD map overlays fro VNAV. I cannot figure out how to get this to display in the plane though....

The GTN will show those on the map page if you have a baro-corrected altitude source connected (including a G5, I think).

I'm pretty sure the GTN won't display those if you don't--I don't have this year's software update to confirm--because without a baro-corrected altitude source, the GTN can't know your indicated altimeter altitude, just your actual GPS altitude (which could be several hundred feet different, especially in cold weather), and for IFR procedures and traffic separation, it's the indicated altimeter altitude, not the real one, that counts.