382 Best Garmin G1000, G3000, G5000 and Cirrus Perspective Settings to Fly Safer and Smarter
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Are you getting the most out of your Garmin panel? Or could your current settings be putting you at risk? Today I'm sharing the exact G1000, G3000, G5000 and Cirrus perspective and plus avionics settings I use to fly smarter and avoid mid-air surprises. And some of those settings apply to other avionics as well, so stick around. Plus, we'll talk about how a simple traffic display setting could literally save your life.

We'll also talk about two accidents, including the recent Hudson helicopter crash for which the NTSB has just issued a preliminary report. And we have audio from a crash of an RV-10 that occurred in Southern California last weekend. Hello again and welcome to Aviation News Talk, where we talk general aviation. My name is Max Trescott. I've been flying for 50 years. I'm the author of several books and the 2008 National Flight Instructor of the Year. And my mission is to help you become the safest possible pilot.

Last week in episode 381, we talked about Susquehanna STEM to the Skies, a nonprofit aviation STEM educational program in rural Pennsylvania designed to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and math through aviation.

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anytime you plan to buy a new headset. First of all, thanks to those of you who took the time this past week to reach out to me regarding my gallbladder surgery last week. I greatly appreciate your words of support, and especially thanks to mega supporter David Ford, who wrote in part, as one who's had a lot of experience with major surgery and general anesthesia, I'm worried that you might, like most of us type A's, be projecting strength when you should be taking a breath.

I've learned from prior experience and in talking things through with friends who've had similar experiences that we underestimate the physical and emotional toll of surgical trauma. I hope that you will give yourself the time and space to recover. It's okay to feel fallible and less than your best self and for longer than you expect. In my opinion, Max, you are a superman and more importantly, a super mensch.

You don't need to overachieve in recovering from surgery. So David, thanks so much for giving me permission to not do the news this week, which saves a lot of time and energy. And thanks so much for referring to me as a mensch. I don't think I've had that compliment before, and I greatly appreciate it. Now let's talk about the preliminary report that's out for the crash of a Bell 206 helicopter that crashed into the Hudson on April 10th while carrying a pilot and five tourists.

We talked about that accident in episode 379, and the report doesn't really add a lot to what we reported at the time. One anomaly that was seemingly confirmed in the report was that the helicopter experienced a rapid rise in altitude just as the accident sequence began.

You may recall that I mentioned that this quick climb showed up in data on adsbexchange.com, but did not show up on FlightAware or FlightRadar24, and so I wondered whether this was indeed real. Now the NTSB report shows that this climb occurred, shows that in one second the aircraft jumped from 625 feet to 675 feet. Now that would be a 3,000 foot per minute climb, which seems unlikely.

But the altitudes reported by the NTSB appear to be in 25-foot increments, so the actual altitude change could have been about half that due to rounding. Still, a jump of 25 feet in one second indicates a 1,500-foot minute per climb rate. Notably, in the following second, the data shows the helicopter dropping 75 feet before essentially remaining level for about two seconds.

A second video of the crash emerged about a week after the crash, and I've examined it closely. That video shows absolutely no increase in altitude at the beginning of the accident sequence. Instead, it appears that the helicopter was in level flight when it suddenly began to rotate. So I think that spike in altitude that was transmitted by the transponder may have been an artifact of the rapid rotation that occurred earlier.

I've looked it up and the Bell 206 does have two static ports on opposite sides of the fuselage. So theoretically, that would average out any differences in static pressure between the two sides of the aircraft.

Regardless, I'm inclined to believe that as the helicopter began to rotate, there was a brief drop in air pressure around one of the static ports and that rapid air pressure change caused the transponder to momentarily show a brief jump in altitude, even though the aircraft was most likely level as it started to spin. As the air pressure restabilized, it then would have shown a drop in altitude.

So I think this rapid up-down altitude change wasn't real, and that may help rule out one theory, which was that the pilot climbed rapidly to avoid a bird or drone. Instead, it appears that the problem started with the tail rotor. And there are three likely candidates, which I mentioned before. One is that a bird or drone flew into the tail rotor, or more likely that the tail rotor suddenly stopped providing thrust because of some failure, possibly maintenance-induced.

It's difficult to tell for sure from the video whether the helicopter started rotating clockwise or counterclockwise, but as I look at the video, it tends to look more like a clockwise rotation, though it's impossible to tell for sure. And a clockwise rotation is exactly what you'd expect with a tail rotor failure in a Bell 206.

About one and a half seconds after the rotation began, the tail cone separated from the helicopter. It could have come off if the tail cone was weakened by corrosion or faulty maintenance, or it could have been cut off by the main rotor, which is common in mass bumping accidents, though it's not at all clear that this accident involved mass bumping.

For a complete loss of tail rotor thrust, the proper response is to enter an autorotation immediately. The first steps would have been to lower the collective and roll the throttle off to flight idle. The pilot may have indeed tried to perform these steps, but it wouldn't be surprising if he hesitated in following them. He was about 550 feet above the Hudson River when the aircraft started to rotate, and he was probably momentarily in disbelief that he was going to end up in the river.

According to the NDSB report, he was a relatively low-time pilot with 790 total hours of flight experience and just 48 hours of experience in make and model. The pilot worked a 10 days on, 10 days off schedule, and the accident flight was his first day back after having 10 days off. The accident flight was the eighth tour flight of the day for the pilot.

So that's about all we're likely to hear about this accident until the NTSB releases a final report, which will probably be about a year from now. And there was also a tragic crash of a Vans RV-10 that occurred over the weekend in Simi Valley near Camarillo in Southern California. That crash killed a pilot, his adult son, and the family dog. The pilot was known to fly frequent trips on behalf of the Pilots and Paws organization.

You may recall that we interviewed Karen Quinn, the director of Pilots in Paws, back in episode 248. Sadly, this is the second fatal crash of a Pilot in Paws volunteer pilot in just the past six months. In November 2024, a pilot died in his Monique 201 in upstate New York while flying a mission for Pilots in Paws.

I was interviewed by Los Angeles' Channel 5 KCAL over the weekend about the crash, so I did a lot of research into the accident ahead of time. The aircraft, November 626 Papa Bravo, was an RV-10 that was certificated in 2020, so it was a relatively new plane, and I found a photo of its cockpit, and it had a modern glass cockpit.

The aircraft was on an IFR flight plan from Lancaster, California to Camarillo, which was the aircraft's home base. Weather at the crash site was reported by a sheriff's deputy to be cloudy, misty weather. The weather at Camarillo was winds 280 at 4, visibility 10, overcast at 1,800 feet.

Now, I'm familiar with the route that the aircraft flew, and most likely it was in clear skies until it had to start its descent over the mountains north of Venise, California. It's quite common for the weather to change as you approach those mountains, and this pilot probably left clear skies and had to begin descending into the clouds after he crossed the mountains. The issue encountered by the pilot began shortly after he was cleared for the instrument approach.

at that time the pilot was headed southbound and he would have had to make about a ninety degree turn to the right to join the beginning of the instrument approach here is the last few minutes of the pilot's transmissions with point magoo approach i have removed some of the spaces between transmissions to save you time

This audio is courtesy of LiveATC.net, and this first transmission is about five minutes before the accident occurred. 626 Papa Bravo with you, and I have Tango for Camarillo. 626 Papa Bravo, make your approach, thanks for Tango, say approach, question to Camarillo. Arnav Zulu, 6 Papa Bravo. 6 Papa Bravo, roger, you're 6 from Jerks, cross Jerks, F4000, cleared Arnav Zulu, 26 approach.

Cleared to RDM, Zulu 26 approach, 626, Papa Bravo. 6, Papa Bravo, maintain current speed or better for passage, draft 8 landing, Kim Rio coming from the west. Papa Bravo.

At the point where the pilot should have been turning right about 90 degrees to join the approach, he actually made a 180 degree turn to the right. The radius of that turn was just about 0.2 nautical miles, so he was banked very steeply. I ran a bank-angled calculator and estimated the plane was banked somewhere between 50 and 55 degrees, so greatly in excess of a standard rate turn.

During that 180-degree turn, the aircraft lost about 2,000 feet of altitude, getting dangerously close to terrain. In the next 10 seconds, as the aircraft leveled off and headed north, it regained about 1,000 feet. It's about this point in time that the controller made the following transmission. During the course of the next few transmissions...

The plane then made another similarly steep turn to the left, losing about 1,000 feet and turning about 270 degrees, which took him east toward a residential area into which he eventually crashed. 6-Papa Bravo, say current F2. November 626, Papa Bravo, McGeer Approach, radar contact lost. November 626, Papa Bravo, McGeer Approach, radio check. 626, Papa Bravo.

626PB, have you come in in broken, say altitude? I'm against 626PB. N626PB, say altitude. N626PB should be at 4000 feet on the RNAV Zulu. N626PB, make your approach.

November 626, Papa Bravo, McGeer Approach, radio check. Yes, I need some vectors. The plane keeps turning on me. And November 626, Papa Bravo, roger, say altitude. 2100. And 626, Papa Bravo, you're coming in broken and unreadable, say again. I did. November 626, Papa Bravo, McGeer Approach. 2000. And November 626, Papa Bravo, you are radar contact lost, I do not have you on my scope. Below 500.

N6, Papa Bravo, if able, remain below 5,000. That was the last transmission that LiveATC.net captured from the pilot. There were then many calls from ATC to the pilot, and eventually they asked another plane in the area to try to contact the plane.

I think the pilot's comment that, quote, the plane keeps turning on me is probably the most salient insight that we have into this crash. And it brings up two possibilities. One is that there was some kind of mechanical problem with the flight controls that was preventing the pilot from flying the airplane. And the other is that the pilot was experiencing spatial disorientation in IMC and that he experienced a loss of control.

Of the two possibilities, I think the latter is more likely since we have so many spatial disorientation accidents and relatively few accidents in which the flight controls stop working. If anything, this suggests that as pilots we need to constantly train to maintain a high level of proficiency.

So if you haven't done any practice with a CFI in the past six months, you might consider scheduling some time with a CFI, even if you feel like you don't need to. Invariably, you'll probably learn something on every dual instruction flight, and paying for flight instruction is a relatively cheap form of life insurance.

And now here's our main topic. Let's talk about the settings I recommend for the Garmin G1000, Perspective, Perspective Plus, G3000, and the G5000. And some of these settings also apply to Garmin standalone navigators, such as the now venerable GNS430 and 530, and the GTN650 and 750. Many of these features we'll talk about are also found in other avionics, so stick around as you may pick up a tip or two for your avionics.

Let's talk about the most important one first, which is vectors on the traffic page. Now, I've shown this to a number of CFIs who said, oh, I didn't know that, which means dozens of their clients don't know that. So please pass along the word about relative vectors. You're probably used to seeing traffic targets that have a white line extending from them that shows where an aircraft is pointed.

And in some of the later model avionics, there is a change you can make to this traffic vector. And you want to make it because it could save your life. From the traffic page, look for a soft key called vectors. And if there is one, see if it leads you to two choices, absolute and relative. And if you have these choices, choose a relative and always fly with it. And here's why.

Absolute vectors show you where the aircraft is pointed, but that's not what's important. Instead, you should care about the target aircraft's path relative to your path and whether you're on a collision course. Here's a way to think of it. Imagine there's a target at 2 o'clock and the absolute vector shows that aircraft will pass in front of you. But imagine that aircraft is much slower than you. In that case, it might actually pass behind you.

With absolute vectors, you're going to see that the aircraft is crossing in front of you, but with the relative vector, it will show you what the plane's really going to do, which is pass behind you.

Absolute vectors are white and relative vectors are green. And anytime a green line crosses over your aircraft symbol, you are on a collision course with that aircraft. So if your altitudes are relatively close, you need to either change your course or your airspeed so that the green line passes at least a mile away. And of course, you can also change altitude.

These days when I'm flying VFR and getting flight following, I'm looking at targets that are six to eight miles away. And if their green vector is anywhere close to my plane, I start altering course early. And what I've found is that I now get fewer traffic calls from ATC as I'm adjusting my path to avoid other aircraft before ATC even calls me. So if your traffic page has vectors, use relative vectors all the time.

And now let's talk about pilot profiles. Because if you want to save your settings, you need to understand pilot profiles. If someone else drives your car, you know how annoying it can be to have to readjust the seat and the mirrors each time. Likely, if more than one person is flying a glass cockpit aircraft, each of them may have his or her personal preferences for configuring the avionics. Pilot profiles let you create up to 25 profiles, each with its own configuration.

You might use one profile for each person who flies the plane, or if you have different configuration preferences for different types of flights, say VFR versus IFR, you could create a separate profile for each. I'll talk about how to find these features in the G1000 Perspective and Perspective Plus aircraft.

For the G3000 and G5000, I still recommend you use the same settings for these features, and I also recommend that you get a copy of my Max Trust Guts Garmin G3000 and G5000 glass cockpit handbook by calling 800-247-6553. To create a profile, go to the system setup page, which is in the aux group. Push the FMS knob and scroll with a large knob to highlight the create field and press the enter key.

Then use the small and large FMS knobs to enter the name for your profile and press Enter. The cursor will then move to Current Settings field. Press the Enter key to use the current settings for the profile. Alternatively, you can turn the small FMS knob to select Garmin Defaults, Default Profile, or the name of an existing profile and press the Enter key. Then turn the large FMS knob to select Create and press the Enter key.

Alternatively, select Create and Activate and press the Enter key which will make your newly created profile active. And to use a profile, you must select it as the active profile. Now, here's the key thing about pilot profiles that didn't used to be documented and I've finally figured it out. If you have a profile selected, for example the profile Max,

And during the flight, you change a map setting or some other parameter that's included in the profile. That change will be saved automatically and become part of your profile the next time you use it. And it won't be immediately obvious to you that this has happened as you don't have to be on any particular screen to change your profile. And there is no save key to save changes that have occurred in your profile.

Here's what can happen if you fly in a club as I do. When someone else flies the plane, upon startup, they have to pick a profile. And if they figure, hey, Max has probably chosen some good settings, they might choose my profile. During flight, they make a change. For example, they change the map to North Up orientation. And unless they change that setting back to the way I had it before they shut down the aircraft, that change is now automatically part of my pilot profile.

So the next time I fly the plane and choose the max profile, it'll wake up in north up mode. But if you want to be clever about reducing the odds of this happening, give your profile a name such as maintenance only or something else that pilots are unlikely to select. Now let's move to the navigation map settings. These are important because they're kind of hidden so you might not have come across them. They get to them in the Garmin G1000 and Perspective and Perspective+.

you need to have the main navigation map displayed on the MFD. And you cannot have the flight plan displayed as part of that screen. I really consider this the home screen on the MFD as it's the one I have displayed about 80% of the time when I fly. To get there in most Garmin products, press and hold the clear key for two seconds, or in newer aircraft like the Cirrus Perspective Plus, press the home key.

From the navigation map page, press the menu key and then select settings. When you do, you'll see that the top field is labeled group and it probably says map under it. What's not obvious is that you can change this field from map to about a half dozen other groups. So if you're not already in the map group, turn the outer FMS knob to highlight the word that's under group and then turn the small FMS knob to select map.

The really great news is that virtually all of the settings that you really care about are in this map settings group. So for the most part, you can ignore the other groups. There are two important settings in the aviation group, and we'll get to those later. The first setting in the map group is map orientation, and it's the one I feel most strongly about.

The navigation map is the only page in the map group of pages for which you can change the orientation. For the other pages, you'll have to use whatever orientation that page is designed to use. There are three and sometimes four different orientations. They are North Up, Track Up, DTK Up, which is Desired Track Up, and Heading Up. Now, candidly, I hate North Up.

And when I fly, I find about 10 to 15% of pilots are diehard Northup believers. And if you're in that small minority of pilots that use it, please listen to why it's such a poor choice. First, from a human factors perspective, it's ergonomically poor and can be dangerously counterintuitive in high workload situations. Think time critical situations when you have only a few seconds to spot another aircraft to avoid it.

North-up disorients rather than aids as it forces pilots to mentally rotate terrain and traffic, which can be unsafe in time-critical scenarios. It is frankly a design choice that prioritizes symmetry over safety. And which would you prefer? For example, if you're flying south in the north-up mode and see an intruder aircraft displayed to the left of the airplane symbol, you need to remember to look to the right to spot the aircraft.

So think about it. The map shows the target to the left, but you need to look right to find it. And if you momentarily screw up where to look,

you could be dead. So let me ask you, do you ever make mistakes? Yes, we all do, especially under pressure. So for this reason alone, I recommend you use any orientation except Northup. Now, I will grant you that Northup might be helpful for planning purposes, and it can still be mostly safe while flying in cruise with relatively little traffic. But where I fly, it's not unusual to have, say, eight targets within six miles, or even

or, and this has happened to be a number of times, to be cleared number six cleared a lane in the traffic pattern at Palo Alto Airport. So I'm monitoring traffic all the time, and I can't afford to ever be confused about where it is. And even flying in the best equipped airplanes, there's still a bit of few times where we've ended up way too close to another aircraft. And by the way, when I've asked a few airline pilots about this, they all tell me they never use Northup.

So fly like the pros and use Heading Up or Track Up.

There is a related setting immediately under orientation called North Up Above, and what they mean by that is when you zoom the map out to a particular map range, usually a relatively high number of miles, the map will rotate to the North Up Orientation. I typically set this for the 1,000 mile map range. So at all map ranges below 1,000, I'll see a heading up or track up display. But when I reach the 1,000 mile map setting, I'll see the map at a North Up Orientation.

And usually when I do that, it's just to see where the thunderstorms are located around the country, mostly because I'm curious and not because any of them are near to me. If they're close to me, I want to look at them in a track up or heading up mode. Next up is auto zoom. This is an easy one. Turn it off, leave it off.

I change the map range many times during flight for a variety of reasons. And once I select a map range, I want the map to stay on that range. And if you turn on auto zoom, it will use some algorithm and make changes to the map range automatically throughout the flight. I don't know about you, but I don't want my map zooming in and out on its own. So leave auto zoom off.

The next setting is Terrain Display, and it lets you set a map range above which topo data is no longer displayed. Topo data is the pretty colors that make your display look like a graphic relief map. So water is blue, low-lying land is green, and mountains are brown. You'll probably want to set this to a high map range, such as the 1,000 mile range, but this is a setting I don't have strong feelings about, so do what you want.

The next setting is Topo Scale, which is a legend displayed in the lower right of the MFD that shows which colors correspond to each elevation. Again, I don't have strong feelings about this either, though I usually have it turned off since it takes up a little bit of space on the moving map. Note that this topographical legend also displays information relevant to your flight.

For example, the minimum and maximum elevations currently displayed on the navigation map page are listed numerically at the top of the box and graphically by a black range indicator to the left of the column of elevation numbers. You'll notice that as you zoom the map in and out, these figures change. Also, your current altitude is shown by a white line on the right side of the display. The next feature which I absolutely adore is the track vectors.

It's the little scion line that sticks out from the front of the airplane symbol. In the original G1000, you couldn't change its length and it always showed the distance you would travel in the next minute. Nowadays, you can change it from 30 seconds to as high as 20 minutes. Most of the time, I leave it at one minute, especially if I'm flying IFR or approaching the traffic pattern. And here's why. When I'm being vectored for an approach and I'm on the base leg to an approach, I'm

Just prior to the controller giving that final clearance to join the approach and clearing me for the approach, I look to see how far that one-minute track vector extends across the final approach course line. Typically, the controller makes that final call when the 60-second track vector is about halfway across the final approach course. It may come a little early with 40 seconds to go or a little late with just 20 seconds to go.

But the call always comes when the track vector is about halfway across the final approach course, except in two circumstances. One is if the controller plans to take me through the final approach course, and the other is if the controller has forgotten me. So by the time there's just 20 seconds of track vector to go, I know that either one of those two situations is in play.

I've also talked in the past about how incredibly helpful the track vector can be in the traffic pattern when making the base to final turn. But this trick only works when the track vector is set for 60 seconds. And here's how to use it. After you've established your bank angle for the turn to final, glance briefly at the MFD to see if the track vector, which will now be curved since you're in a turn, is tangent or just barely touching the dashed runway extension line that extends out from the runway.

We'll talk about how to turn that runway extension line on later. Often when I'm flying with a client in the turn to final, I'll glance at the track vector, and if it crosses over the extended center line, I know that the pilot will be overshooting their turn, and I'll often suggest that they steepen up the bank angle a little. Now there are times that I select a different track vector length, but they're rare.

For example, if I'm VFRing along cross-country and I want to just barely avoid something, such as a restricted area, I'll change the track vector length to 20 minutes, and then I'll use the heading mode to change the heading until the track vector falls just outside of the restricted area. So it's a very handy feature.

Another helpful feature is the wind vector, which tells you the wind strength and direction. Depending upon the software version you're flying with, there may be two or three options for how it should be displayed, and it may appear in up to three different locations on your system. First, in map settings, turn the wind vector on. You should now see it in the upper right corner of the MFD and in the PFD's inset map if you have that turned on.

It will also be in the form of a vector showing the wind strength and direction. The format is helpful for determining in route winds, but it's less helpful for seeing how much of a crosswind you have when landing. You can also choose from two or three options for displaying the wind in a third location, which is on the PFD to the left of the HSI. For this wind display, I prefer the option that displays two arrows and two numbers that resolve the wind vector into its two components.

The number below the vertical arrow shows the amount of headwind or tailwind in knots, and the number next to the horizontal arrow shows the amount of left or right crosswind. This option is particularly helpful for identifying the crosswind component when on final approach to land. To select among the options, go to the PFD and press the PFD soft key, the wind soft key, and then choose between the two or three options displayed.

The next map setting, and we're moving back to the MFD now, is the nav range ring. I prefer to have it on. The older style put a circle around the airplane symbol, and the newer style puts an arc in front of the airplane symbol. I find the range ring especially useful when I'm flying on downwind, and I'm trying to establish the distance of my downwind leg from the runway.

This is particularly critical and more difficult during circling approaches when flying at an altitude significantly lower than the traffic pattern altitude, and in that circumstance, pilots tend to fly a downwind that's too close to the runway. If you adjust the map range so that the edge of the nav range ring is tangent to the runway, you can determine your distance by seeing which map range is selected.

Doing this with the new arc version of the nav range ring is a little more difficult, as you'll need to mentally extend the arc in your mind until it reaches the 9 o'clock or 3 o'clock position to see at what map range that imaginary circle touches the runway. So, turn the nav range ring on. Obstacle Data Obstacle data is displayed using the same tower symbols used on sectional charts.

You can also set a map range setting up to 50 nautical miles above which obstacles won't be displayed. So if you're flying low and need to avoid obstacles, you'll want to keep your map range set below this particular setting. Otherwise, you won't see any obstacles. Note that the G1000 does not provide any oral or visual warning of obstacles unless you have synthetic vision. So you must monitor the display to become aware of obstacles.

I like having obstacles set to a relatively high map setting, such as 50 nautical miles, so that I'll see obstacles on most map ranges I use. But sometimes if there's a huge number of obstacles, such as a cluster of wind turbines, I'll set a smaller map range so that I don't have to see dozens of obstacles stacked on top of each other. So in map settings, turn obstacles on and next to it, set a relatively high map range, such as 20 or 50 nautical miles.

Next is the fuel range ring, which is one of my favorite features. When enabled, it displays two yellow or green rings around your current position. Taking into account your current ground speed, winds aloft, fuel flow, and remaining fuel, a dashed yellow inner ring indicates the distance you can fly until reaching your fuel reserve. An outer ring indicates the distance you can fly until fuel exhaustion.

All of this can be calculated manually, but the graphical fuel range ring is more intuitive and easier to use. To enable it, in map settings, turn fuel range reserve on, then scroll to the next field and enter the number of minutes of reserve fuel to be used in the calculations and press the enter key. I generally set the reserve for one hour. Then on long trips, I make sure my destination airport remains inside the inner ring.

If the airport is between the rings, it means I'll be landing with less than an hour of fuel. And in those circumstances, I'll adjust the throttle and mixture to move the airport back inside the inner ring. And if I can't make that happen, I'll divert to another airport for fuel.

Down near the bottom of the map settings is the selected altitude arc, also known as the banana bar. You always want this on. Here's what it does. Whenever you're in a climb or descent, a light blue intercept arc appears on the navigation map page at the estimated position the aircraft will reach the selected altitude that you've set on the PFD.

This is hugely valuable when flying an instrument approach as it quickly answers the question, will I get down to my target altitude before the next fix? So always turn it on. In aircraft with synthetic vision, there's a setting called field of view, which I leave turned off. It adds a pair of dashed lines that are V-shaped to the front of the airplane symbol, which resembles antenna on a bug, which I find distracting.

The triangle formed by those two dashed lines represents the area ahead that's being evaluated for the synthetic vision displayed on the PFD. That area is approximately 30 degrees to the left of center, 35 degrees to the right of center, and I believe it extends 15 miles in front of the plane, though I couldn't confirm that. And the size of that triangle doesn't change unless you go into reversionary mode where it gets a little smaller.

So I feel like I get very little information from the V-shaped antenna on the airplane symbol, so I leave it off. So that's everything you'll find under Settings in the Map group. There are about a half dozen other groups, and I never change those settings, except for two important items in the Aviation group. To get to it, push the Menu key, Settings, and then under Group, select Aviation.

Then scroll down to Runway Extensions, turn it on, and then select the maximum map range available, which I think is 100 nautical miles. This turns on dashed white lines showing the extended center lines for all runways of an airport that's the active waypoint, which is usually your destination. The lines are very helpful for identifying the runway center line and tracking it into an airport.

Many years ago, when the G1000 first came out, I was on a night VFR flight to Monterey, California. That airport is surrounded by city lights, and as the pilot and I were flying over the ocean toward the city, we could not spot the airport. Then I remembered runway extensions, turned them on, and we instantly knew where to fly to intercept the extended centerline to the runway.

Also, I find them helpful in the traffic pattern as combined with the track vector we discussed, you get an accurate picture of whether you're going to overshoot or undershoot the runway during your turn to final. So definitely turn runway extensions on and select the maximum map range available so that they're almost always displayed.

Next is TFR data. A lot of you rely on your EFB apps, such as ForeFlight and Garmin Pilot, to display these. But in addition to that, I find it valuable to display TFRs on the aircraft's MFD. To do that, go into the same aviation map group in which you found runway extensions, define TFRs, and turn that function on. Now let's talk about the soft keys for the navigation map page.

First up is the MapOpt, which is short for Mapped Options soft key. And in it, you want to find the traffic soft key, and I leave that turned on all the time. I can't imagine why you'd want to turn it off. Often I'll get into a rental plane and find it turned off. So if anyone else has access to your plane, verify it's turned on every time you fly. Next is what was called the Profile View in older versions of the avionics, and which is now called InSet in newer software versions.

If you have a profile key, push it and it will bring up a strip along the bottom of the MFD that shows a side view or profile view of your altitude versus the terrain below you. If you have a newer system, press the map op soft key and then the inset soft key. From here you have three options. The first one is VSD for vertical situation display and it gives you essentially the same view found in older systems with a profile soft key.

Generally, I don't have profile or inset map selected because it takes away space from the bottom of the navigation map. But I do turn it on in two situations. One is when I'm in cruise and I want to see the winds aloft at different altitudes. And there have been times on ferry flights across the country where it's been invaluable.

Once while headed westbound over Nebraska at 6,000 feet, I had the expected headwind. But the profile view showed a tailwind at 4,000 feet. Sure enough, as we started to descend, our headwind turned into a tailwind. I also use the profiler inset map anytime I'm descending at night, as I want to see what kind of separation I have from the terrain during my descent.

With terrain and older systems and relative terrain and newer systems turned on, I can also see from the colors, red, yellow, and green, approximately how high I am above the terrain along my descent path. So profile or inset map is valuable, but I only turn it on when I feel that it will be helpful.

In newer systems, there are two other choices in addition to VSD, and they show various text versions of your flight plan. I almost never used these, but did find one of these screens invaluable in March when issued an unusual instruction en route to Austin, Texas in a vision jet. Initially, we were told to slow as to cross some fix three minutes later than we were currently scheduled to cross that fix. Later, we were told to cross that fix at a certain time or later.

At first I started doing mental math to figure this all out, but then the pilot brought up one of the textual unset map screens and it showed the times at which we were projected to cross each fix. So then we just adjusted the power until the desired time was shown for that fix. Also under the map options soft key is terrain. In older software versions, topo and terrain are separate soft keys, but now they're buried down a level. Topo shows the pretty map colors and I use that in the daytime.

Terrain, which is now called relative in newer systems, uses color to show how far the terrain is below you. I always, always, always use relative terrain at night. All versions color terrain red when it's either above you or as little as 100 feet below you. Yellow is used to show terrain that's between 100 and 1,000 feet below you. So don't fly over yellow terrain at night because it could be as little as 100 feet below you, which is unsafe.

In older systems, if you're more than 1,000 feet above terrain, it's displayed black. In newer systems, green is used to show terrain that's between 1,000 and 2,000 feet below you, and black isn't shown unless you're more than 2,000 feet above the terrain.

Please use terrain or relative terrain every time you fly at night. Just today I was reading the final report of a CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter that crashed on February 6, 2024 during a late night flight when it hit a mountain near Pine Valley, California on its way back to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

That crash killed five Marines. Investigators found that the pilot's failure to avoid the terrain was a primary cause of the crash. I'm convinced if they had a display that could display terrain and they were using it, that crash would not have happened. Years ago, two CAP pilots flew a G-1000 equipped Cessna 182 into terrain in the wee hours of the morning near Las Vegas.

Clearly, they were not using the terrain screen. So, if you have this capability, you are absolutely nuts to not have it turned on at night unless you fly over totally flat terrain. Also under the map options, soft key is airways. I usually have these turned off as they tend to clutter up the screen. Also under the same soft key is the Nexrad soft key, and I have that turned on most of the time. And finally, there is the Cirrus XM lightning key, and you'll want that turned on if there's convective activity in the area.

And then there's the declutter soft key, which in later versions is called the detail key. Regardless of what it's called or which version you have, it gives you four levels of detail that you can display on the navigation map page. You basically just keep pushing the soft key to cycle through the four levels of detail. On the old GNS 430 and 530, you use the clear key to step through the same four levels.

I never use the level that shows all of the detail. Instead, I step the next level down, which on the old systems was labeled declutter minus one, and on the new systems is labeled detail minus three.

I like it because it eliminates a lot of GPS waypoints that I don't need to see so it declutters the screen. But if I were to go down to the next lower level, I would lose all of the Class C and Class B airspace of which we have a lot around here. So being one level of declutter down from the maximum amount of detail is optimal for me.

That's most of the settings on the MFD that I care about. On the PFD, there are far fewer things to configure. We've already talked about configuring the win option using softkeys on the PFD.

The only other major thing I change on the PFD is synthetic vision, and I generally have everything related to synthetic vision turned on, except for pathways, which I turn off. As I've explained in the past, pathways show a set of constantly moving boxes, and they add zero information when you're in level cruise, and since they're in constant motion, they can desensitize you from noticing something else that might change on your screen.

So unless you have a use for pathways, and most of the time I don't, turn them off. And always turn off any flashing cursors that may remain on in your flight plan. These two can also desensitize you. So after making a change in the flight plan, turn the flashing cursor off. So those are my preferences for settings. I hope you'll spend more time thinking about the settings that you use when you fly. And if you have other settings we haven't talked about that you'd like to change, please let me know.

And just a reminder that I love hearing from you and I read many of your emails on the show. If you'd like to send me a message, just go out to aviationnewstalk.com, click on contact at the top of the page. That's absolutely the best way to send me a message. And of course, I also want to thank everyone who supports the show in one of the following ways. We love it when you join the club and sign up at aviationnewstalk.com slash support to

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Coming down Don't wait on pure silence Baby, sliding upside down You can always