IFR/Garmin 430 - How would you do it?

[7DeltaLima]

Group: Wife and I were coming back from MSL (Muscle Shoals, Al) to MUT (Muscatine, IA) last Sunday. There was a strong, well defined line of thunderstorms in Southern IL that we were picking our way through (really love the XM Weather for cross country).

When we left MSL, I plugged in Direct MSL. Received my IFR clearance from Memphis, climbed to 8k and started watching the radar. We were on about as 340 heading. In Southern IL, we caught up with the line of thunderstorms. Asked for and received clearance to divert to 280 to go around one big cell. After we cleared the cell, I reported direct again to MUT. All's well.

The diversion west is now going to put us over the top of STL where the weather is not the best in the world. Understandably, the controllers modified my clearance to (won't get the correct phraseology) cross the Centralia 280 radial 20 miles from Centralia (ENL VOR) then direct MUT for weather avoidance (which I appreciated) and traffic (don't come over the top of Lambert today). I was south west of ENL when receiving this clearance.

I honestly butchered this procedure. I had no clue how to execute what they were asking for other than punch in direct ENL and turn direct MUT when within 20 miles of ENL. I'm in IMC for 45 minutes and glad I have the AP to help while I'm trying to figure this thing out. I definitely was not on the 280 radial being south west of ENL at the time. The controllers were very helpful and vectored me a couple times to get me where they wanted me but that's not acceptable to me.

I've played with the 430 training simulator some today to figure out what I should have done. I'll throw out my solution after hearing a couple from the stands

How/what would you have plugged into the 430? I'm sure I'm missing something very simple but I can't see a simple way of accomplishing the requirement.

I'm equipped with a single com (430) and the 430 for nav (gps-vor-ils) with a CDI.

(On a positive note, I've gotten about 2 hours of actual in the RV in the last month and a half. The RV-7A has been a good platform to work through the weather in. It's fast enough that you can divert and skirt around some areas and sound enough that you can punch through when you have too.)

Thanks in advance,
Doug
7A

 

[Kevin Horton]

You need to create a waypoint at the location that you want to navigate to. Press the Direct-To key. Enter a name for the waypoint, and press Enter. Confirm that you want to create a new waypoint at a User position.

Now you'll be on a screen that allows you to define the new waypoint position as a Lat and Long, or with reference to existing waypoints. You can make it be a specified bearing from two different waypoints, or a bearing and distance from one waypoint (this is the case you need).

Move the cursor to the top line in the REF WPT fields, and input ENL, press Enter, then input 280.0, Enter, then 20.0 miles. Keep pressing Enter until the Create item is highlighted, then hit it again to create the waypoint. The screen will go back to the Direct-To page, so you can confirm and activate the direct-to.

 

[Ben Beaird]

I think I would page over to the NEAREST VOR page, cursor down to ENL hit "Direct To". Then enter the CDI mode and twist the OBS to 280 to establish the "Cross Radial Line". Then monitor the distance from ENL and fly a "manual" 20 mi DME Arc. Once you've crossed the 280 radial, go back to Direct-to MUT.

Would that have worked? I know how difficult it is to think through these things and fly at the same time.

Ben Beaird
-6A

 

[dlloyd3]

ATC wishes you had old technology. Ask for an intersection after Centralia. Or unfold the chart and you will find DUTMY is 277 and 19 miles. Insert go there--okay, after you turn at DUTMY go another mile and you are about .1 miles south where they wanted. Think you could have done better with VOR and DME?

 

[w1curtis]

I guess the proper way to perform that maneuver is to use the OBS process, but I've found the OBS function on the Garmin 430 to be painfully slow. Rotating the OBS knob after pushing the button causes the "processing" message to continuously appear. For this reason, I would also do the "create the waypoint" approach since it would be relatively easy to create a user waypoint on radial 280, 20 miles from ENL and then "Direct to" that user waypoint.

 

[7DeltaLima]

Thanks for the comments. I had settled on the "create user waypoint" as the solution as well. Honestly, this didn't even cross my mind while flying.

In a round about way, I did fly the dme 20 arc from ENL until crossing radial 280. Just wasn't very confident in my solution. I also wonder if that would be what the controller was really expecting. Depending upon where you start in relation to ENL, going direct ENL until DME 20, then flying the DME 20 arc would be a completely different track than "direct radial 280 20 miles from ENL".

As a followup question, when I do as Kevin has suggested "direct user waypoint x" I of course lose my end destination of "direct MUT" in the flight plan. No big deal for me in this case as it is quite simply solved by pressing the "direct to" and re-entering "KMUT" after crossing user waypoint x. How would you attack this when you have a complicated flight plan loaded with multiple waypoints? I'm guessing the answer would still be create the user waypoint and then insert it into the flight plan in the proper sequence.

The real point of all this (and a major lesson re-learned) is that in a single pilot IFR flight environment, this can all get real complicated and time consuming.

(Confession time) I've flown this route at least 6-8 times in the last 3 months, IFR with most flights having some actual IMC along the way. I've had several route diversions but they were always at my request and to deviate "X" degrees for few minutes then back direct or deviate direct to some vor then direct back to final destination. I always have current approach plates that cover all states I'm traveling over but have grown to rely upon the gps for xc routing. I was given a route change that my equipment was quite capable of handling but I wasn't. I wasn't prepared. I've become accustomed to "direct x" and when given this request I couldn't fit it into my perspective. I need to make sure that I know how to use all the capabilites of all the tools that I have in the cockpit, not just the simple solution of "direct x".

Thanks for listening and thanks for your help.
Doug

 

[7pilot]

If you ammend the flight plan instead of going into a "direct to" scenario you will be able to insert the point you need to go to before continuing on the next leg. Highlight the entry of the flight plan you are on and put in your way point that you set up and you can then run on your merry way! The 430 is a great tool, play with it a lot, teach your wife too if she has any desire to learn.

Stewart