In a statement sent to FLYING, Garmin advised that “due to multiple component availability limitations, comprehensive repair service for Garmin’s GNS 430/530 series is estimated to become limited in the years ahead. This includes all GPS/COM and GPS-only variants, as well as all WAAS models. Initially, these limitations are estimated to impact a small percentage of repairs in 2024.”

The GNS 430/530 was introduced in 1998 and produced until 2011, which included 25 years of repairs.

• READ MORE: Bidding Farewell to the Garmin GNS Line

“We will continue to do so until serviceable components become unavailable,” the company statement said.

Garmin noted that it plans to continue offering repair service when the components required for a specific repair remain available. Database updates and technical support will also remain available.

The company added that products that Garmin must return as unrepairable due to the announced unavailability of repair parts will incur a $500 processing fee per unit.

Garmin is encouraging customers to transition to newer-generation products.

The post Garmin Announces Repair Service Limitation on GNS 430 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Although I miss having the resources that were available in my airline life, I enjoy the challenge of being my own dispatcher, meteorologist, and travel agent. I’ll admit to being a jack of all trades and master of none. Barring the need for a nap, my favorite copilot is not only an active participant in cockpit resource management, but she’s a great baggage loader, adept at organizing stuff to fit in the right places and still be accessible. She is also a competent ForeFlight operator.

The first challenge was departing our hangar. In response to the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, the airport director had allowed a subcontractor of Florida Power & Light to stage a massive presence of personnel and equipment on a portion of the ramp, blocking our egress. After coordinating with the FBO lineman, I used my electric tug to navigate the maze of tractor trailers enroute to the runway without spinning a propeller blade or scraping a wing tip.

Maintaining my instrument currency on my own is now necessary, so I filed IFR for almost every leg of the vacation. Having ATC as a traffic safety net is a benefit, although knob-twisting on the Garmin GNS 430 to enter waypoints is not my favorite task. Having embarrassed myself with a data entry error, I now read the waypoints to my wife from the GPS while she checks the spelling on ForeFlight, a procedure similar to one we followed at the airline.

Our first destination was Summerville, South Carolina (KDYB), near Charleston, reuniting with relocated friends we had missed in the wake of COVID. I warmed up for the trip with a reasonably executed LPV approach thanks to an S-Tec autopilot, an Aspen Avionics display, and a little old-fashioned pilot input.

As our journey progressed, I discovered that advance ATC requests to proceed toward the appropriate IAF (initial approach fix) saved a lot of last-minute maneuvering. In the big jet, such requests were usually unnecessary because ATC was already sequencing airplanes into the flow of high-speed traffic to particular runways at high density airports.

Two days later, I braved a 39-minute VFR flight direct to Conway, South Carolina (KHYW). With a couple of exceptions, our flight times did not test our bladders. And we mostly stuck to the two-day visit pattern, not wanting to age like the proverbial three-day fish with our hosts.

After a pleasant visit with other South Carolina, pandemic-forgotten friends, we departed for Asheville, North Carolina (KAVL). The trip to Asheville was important because we had recently lost our friend’s husband to pre-existing medical complications after a car accident. Warren Rauhoffer, a former Miami-based chief pilot and friend, had officiated our wedding more than 25 years ago. We thought it appropriate to play our wedding video for an audience of one despite it not being an action thriller.

The higher terrain around the Asheville airport offers some challenges. Although orographic turbulence can be a factor, our arrival involved only light chop. A line person from Signature Flight Support towed the Arrow to the far end of the tie-down area, where we weren’t tied down. On our departure day we awaited an escort through the security gate, which never arrived. They eventually provided transportation, but it would have been easier to just roll our luggage across the ramp, as we’re seasoned professionals. Credit to Signature, though—they waived the service fee for the inconvenience.

From Asheville we proceeded to Charlottesville (KCHO) and to the wedding, where we partook of the amenities at the Boar’s Head Resort, which included some much-needed exercise at one of the University of Virginia’s athletic facilities. At the airport, Signature personnel were friendly and personable, but…well…we paid Signature prices. After Charlottesville, we departed on an 18-minute non-stop to Culpepper (KCJR), Virginia. We spent time in the quaint town, visited battle sites, and hiked two trails in the Shenandoah mountains.

A 35-minute flight took us to Gettysburg (W05), Pennsylvania. Although the airport was short on ramp space, the manager was accommodating and great with recommendations. Aside from the historical significance of a town caught in the crossfire of war, it hosts a powerful connection to our past. It was an important perspective to stand on the site where the author of one of the greatest speeches ever addressed the country—Abraham Lincoln.

Departing Gettysburg, I made a rookie mistake in preloading the 430 with the filed route through NewYork airspace. Five revisions and a few vectors to nowhere later, we arrived at our former home airport of Danbury, Connecticut (KDXR). In addition to visits with old friends and a driving tour past our former residence, the Arrow got a prop balance from my friends at Tally-Ho Aviation.

To abbreviate the remainder of the journey, we spent three days with my 91-year-old mom in Syracuse, NewYork (KSYR), and flew to Concord, New Hampshire (KCON), to visit another couple—the husband was about to retire as an Airbus A320 check airman from my former airline. We continued to Boston, arriving at Norwood, Massachusetts (KOWD), taking in the spectacular panoramic view of Beantown from our friends’ 51st-floor apartment. RVR visibilities quashed our plans for a flight to Providence, so Amtrak came to the rescue.

The incredible scenery around Biddeford, Maine (B19), inclusive of Portland’s breweries, was our next stop to visit friends. We then departed Maine, routed directly over my old JFK stomping grounds and continued to Cape May, New Jersey (KWWD), for a semi-informal Allegheny Commuter reunion—the employment during which I had earned an ATP.

From Cape May we altered our course, and I got to test my skills flying an actual RNAV approach and landing on a short, skinny runway—obstacles included—in Annapolis, Maryland (KANP). There, we visited with an Allegheny Commuter captain friend whose career abruptly ended because of a botched medical procedure. She was one of the airline’s best pilots.

The last stop was in Ellijay, Georgia (49A), a destination we have visited numerous times. My JetBlue friend and his wife own a second home on the outskirts of town. The occasional moderate chop and IMC we encountered over mountainous terrain was not high on my wife’s hit parade, but we arrived with our dentures intact.

Our three-hour leg home to Flagler Beach, (KFIN), was not without challenges. The relaxed morning departure time put us in the path of un-forecast afternoon convection, requiring us to zig, zag, and climb to higher altitudes. After five weeks, we were glad to reunite with our Sleep Number bed. The airplane facilitated great memories of the past and present. That being said, I may wait a while to ask my wife about another sojourn.

This article was originally published in the February 2023 Issue 934 of FLYING.

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A couple of weeks after the examiner gave me that wonderful gift on Christmas Eve last year and I was back to being a genuine, certified, legal, private pilot, my Cessna 180 went into the shop for annual inspection. It began in mid-January and dragged on well into February, but no problem—the weather was pretty gruesome around here, and I can’t yet do any cloud aviatin’. Come March, and I was flying the wings off 72B in spite of an unusually stormy, wet spring in the Midwest. I was nearing the point where I could again hand-fly my auto-pilot-less airplane under the hood while manipulating ForeFlight and a WAAS-enabled Garmin GNS 430 in preparation for the instrument practical test.

It was a glorious morning in early May, when I flew the 180 up the road to Lebanon’s Warren County Airport (I68). I think most of us critique ourselves after every flight, usually finding something we could have done better. But this, albeit short flight, was flat-out perfect. I pushed the right buttons, twisted the right knobs, flew a perfect RNAV approach, and even ended with one of those rare “squeaker” landings when you’re not sure if you’re really on the ground. (And there haven’t been many of those lately.)

Lebanon was pretty quiet, so after talking to Mark Day—he’s a technician with inspection authorization, or IA—and avionics guru Pete York about an avionics installation, I cranked up to head home. Sitting in the runup area and fiddling with the 430, I suddenly felt a considerable jolt and heard a big thud. Was it a blown tire…a humongous vulture…an earthquake? Maybe an FAA special operations agent trying to keep me away from bridges? Whatever, I shut down and climbed out to see the left wing of a Smith Miniplane embedded in my rudder.

Naturally, my first thought was, “Well, at least I didn’t cause this one.” A cursory look had me hoping the Miniplane driver just dented my rudder. But a closer look showed the whole tail bent and ominous wrinkles in the vertical stabilizer. My tail (this time the metal one) was back in trouble.

The other pilot knew me and was hugely embarrassed and upset. He’s a good guy but was taxiing too fast and not S-turning, so he simply never saw me sitting there. The damage to his airplane seemed limited to a considerable, but fixable dent in his left wing. He was so upset I put my arm around him (stifling the urge to squeeze really tight) and said it wasn’t the end of the world (well, not quite), so be thankful that nobody was hurt, take some deep breaths, and calm down. 

After Mark Day came out and took a look, he confirmed I wasn’t going anywhere. But where would I rather be than here at his shop? We got it in a hangar and the consensus was that calling the FAA was a bad idea. “Heck, nobody is going to say anything.” I agreed that calling the FAA was ugly, but I also knew that within hours, the news would be all over the Midwest. And the damage did seem to be “substantial” so I made the call…or tried to. Evidently, the FAA doesn’t answer telephones these days; you just leave a message, and if your government is at work, I guess it’s from home.

Fast forward to Sunday—four days later—waiting for some word from the Miniplane’s insurance adjustor, and driving home from Mass, I hit the world’s biggest pothole in a city (Cincinnati) that holds the world record for potholes. My little Beemer nearly disappeared, and it took a tow, two weeks, and $7,500 to straighten out the front end. 

Still trying to build a fire under the well-known aviation insurance company to move on the 180 damage, Mark took the tail off, and a friend trucked it to Williams Airframe Components in Kendallville, Indiana. Airframe expert Nathan Whetzel said they were working five weeks out. But sobbing over the phone and sending a big jar of chocolate-covered peanuts seemed to motivate them.

Well, two “events,” but I’m not superstitious about bad things happening in threes. Wrong! Some wonderful friends offered their Cessna 182s for my IFR prep, but I decided to wait on 72B and treated myself to a Cub fix at Stewart’s Field in Waynesville. It was a perfect Cub morning with puffy white clouds dotting a blue, blue sky over the green, green farm fields of southern Ohio. After a few landings, I left the pattern for some “contour flying” and a few whifferdills. Of course, the door and window were open but I’d forgotten about the iPad mini I’d tucked under my leg. Something felt wrong, and after a thorough search of the Cub, I uttered a string of unrepeatable words, realizing that the iPad was in somebody’s corn or soybean field.

Dumb? Well, yes, since I should have had it strapped securely to my leg. But the bigger question is, what kind of a jerk takes an iPad to track with ForeFlight when flying a Cub? I deserved to lose the damned thing.

I knew I could pinpoint the location where the skydiving iPad landed but decided against it; it was likely shattered, and from my FAA days working with crop dusters in Illinois, I knew the chemicals in fertilizers and insecticides could be deadly.

Besides, I like to think about the speculation of anthropologists or archeologists 2,000 years from now when they unearth this strange gadget in an area where the Mound Builders, and later, Tecumseh and the Shawnees roamed.

I can picture their astonishment when they uncover the strange little device which seems to prove ancient people flew airplanes and shopped on something called Amazon.

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