February 2007 - American Bonanza Society

UPGRADING TO WAASWIDEBY JOHN COLLINS, CHARLOTIE, NORTH CAROLINAAREA AUGMENTATION SYSTEM:An extremely accurate navigationsystem developed for civil aviationfor precision fligh! opprooches.I have long planned on installingthe Garmin GNS530W WAASupgrade in my V35A as soon asit became available. (Note: Thecomments in this article a lsoapply to the GNS430Was well.)ChangesThe functions that sold me onupgrading to the Garmin GNS530W arerelated to the improvements in supponof the Garmin GDL69A. Now the entirelower 48 states will have NEXRAD datadisplayed with 16 times the resolutionthat was available on the GNS530.Added are graphical METARs on the XMWeather page and selection of textualMETARs from the XM Weather page orthe airpon pages. In addition Garmin hasadded TAFs, graphical TFRs and theTerrain feature. There is a new set of auxpages to control the channel and volumeof the XM audio entenainment.The faster processor, LPV capability,parallel flight plan and the GPSSsteering for holding patterns and procedureturns are nice, but none of these areessential for me.Coming soonGarrrtin announced upgrades wouldbe available starting in January of 2007,so in anticipation and with the help ofmy dealer, I have been reviewing thedetails involved in the upgrade. Garminhas developed an STC, SAO 1933LA,for the installation, with a very largeApproved Model Li st that includes allof the Bonanzas and Barons as well asthe rest of the Beechcraft line.I recommend you take your aircraftto your dealer for a planning session todetermine what is going to be involved inits upgrade. That way, you won 't be surprisedwhen the time comes. If you can'tuse the STC, your dealer can submit a337 for FAA field approval withoutimpacting your installation downtime.Before the dealer sends yourGNS530 to Garmin for update, they willrecord its exi sting configuration. Iwould plan on two to three weeks forthe entire conversion. Garmin willreplace the GPS and processor boardsand supply a new antenna. The upgradedequipment comes with a new oneyearwarranty, regardless of whetheryour GPS is currently out of warranty.Replacing antennaAll installations require the antennabe replaced. There will be labor to gainaccess to the antenna and many aircraftwill need to have the headliner removed.The antenna cable needs to be a doubleshieldedlow-loss cable such as RG400or RGI42B and cannot be RG59.Like many aircraft, my cable isRG59 and will need to be replaced. Thismeans that parts of the left-hand sidewalland trim will need to come off toexpose the cable route. Replacing thecable, if needed, and the antenna mayinvolve up to eight hours of labor.New data cardThere is a new data card (PIN 010-10546-0) for the Garmin GNS530Wand it is not compatible with theGNS530 data card (pIN 010-10201 -00).The "W" card has 16MB capacity comparedto the original card's 8MB. Thereare a few consequences to the difference:Any spares you have wi ll not work afterthe conversion, so you will have to buynew spares. If you have two units andupgrade one to a lOW" and not the other,the cross-fill function will not work.If you have the old PCMCIASkybound II programmer from Jeppesen,you will need to upgrade to theSkybound USB. Jeppesen is offering aspecial upgrade price of $79.95. You willneed to cancel your existing Skyboundupdate service and start a new service forthe GNS530W. The new service for theAmericas will cost $410 per year, withlower price options available for US 48,Eastern US or Western US coverage.Field of viewThe GNS530W STC has very specificfield-of-view requirements that arenot included in the GNS530 InstallManual. The GNS530W must bemounted within a defined primary fie ldof view, or else it requires five remotestatus annunciators (INTGR, MSG,WPT, TERM and APR). There is aslightly tighter requirement forGPSINAV source annunciation (NAVarVLOC and GPS).If you have a standard T instrumentcluster like mine, the measurement isfrom the middle of the attitude indicatorto the left edge of the GNS530W. If thisexceeds 12 .1 ", it requires the GPS/NAVannunciation (if the CD! is a GarrninGil 06A, GPSINAV annunciation is inthe CD!). If the measurement exceeds13.8", you wi ll require the five annunciatorswithin the primary field of view.My GNS530 is mounted in theangled center stack just below the audiopanel. The measurement for my aircraft is16.9", so I will have to add both types ofannunciators. I don't think this is a badthing, except the expense. That willinvolve up to eight more hours of laborplus the cost of the annunciator panel.In my case, I will install a Mid­Continent annunciator (list price of$1,023) just below my HSI. Note thatnot all annunciators have the INTGRannunciator, so check this if you alreadyhave annunciators installed, as you maystill have to add one annunciator. I thinkmost pre-1984 Beechcraft will requireannunciators to be added if they are notalready installed.In my opinion, A36s and 58s manufacturedin 1984 and later will notrequire the annunciators. I took measurementson a late-model A36 thatPage 10051www.bonanza.orgASS February 2007