Estimated reading time 5 minutes, 24 seconds.
Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd., announced new features now available for the GTN Xi Series of navigators including a glide range ring that helps safety-minded pilots visualize the estimated area an aircraft could reach in the case engine power is lost. Other new features include the ability to remotely control the radios of another GTN Xi when dual GTN Xi units are installed in an aircraft, quicker page navigation with the addition of customizable dual concentric knob functions, and more.
Glide Range Ring
The new glide range ring helps pilots enhance their situational awareness by depicting the estimated area that the aircraft can reach when it’s configured for best glide range in the case of an engine failure. The glide range ring considers terrain data, as well as wind data when provided by a GDL 69 or FIS-B Source, or calculated winds from a compatible Garmin fight display2, in order to help pilots continuously plan while flying. Further, G500 TXi or G600 TXi flight displays can also show the
glide range ring when paired with the GTN Xi while using the GTN Xi GPS guidance as the horizontal situational indicator (HSI) source.
Best Glide Airport Indicator
Depicted as cyan chevrons pointing to the recommended airport for the aircraft to glide to from its current position, the Best Glide Airport Indicator1 is selected based upon distance from present location, runway length at the airport, wind data, and airport weather through FIS-B or Sirius XM if available on the aircraft. If desired, the Best Glide Airport Indicator can be displayed by itself or with the Glide Range Ring also shown.
Nearest Airport list updated to show Glide Check
The nearest airport list now indicates which airports are estimated to be reachable on glide by displaying a green checkmark indication next to the airport identifier1. If the pilot’s criteria for nearest airports would have excluded an airport that is estimated to be within glide range, the system will automatically add these airports back to the nearest airport list and display the glide check, while also highlighting the runway length and surface type with a white box if these figures do not meet the previous nearest airport criteria set by the pilot.
Remote radio control and new radios page
When dual GTN Xi navigators are installed, pilots can now remotely control and tune the radio frequencies on both units from a single GTN Xi navigator. Pilots can control both the comm and nav radio tuning, in addition to volume level, which is an especially useful function for quick radio tuning in a busy flight environment. Additionally, pilots can cycle through radios of both GTN Xi navigators by pressing the dual concentric knob on just one GTN Xi. A new radios page displays all Comm and Nav frequencies (active and standby) of both units, as well as volume levels. The radios page can be quickly accessed from the frequency keypad page or as a preset user field button. From this page, pilots can easily flip the respective active and standby frequencies. Also new, pilots can load a frequency to the active or standby position of either GTN Xi from applicable airport or waypoint information pages.
Quicker page navigation with dual concentric knob
Similar to other Garmin navigators, the dual concentric knob can now enable quicker access to select pages. The outer knob now allows the pilot to intuitively cycle between pages on their GTN Xi, while the inner knob can now support functionality related to the current page being displayed, such as scrolling through lists or zooming in on maps. A new locator bar works in conjunction with the outer knob and indicates the current page while also displaying which page is next. Pilots can allocate and customize up to nine pages to be controlled by the outer knob including Map, Nav, Flight Plan, Traffic, Weather, Fuel Planning, and many more.
Other GTN Xi series improvements
Additional features of the latest GTN Xi update include:
- New user fields such as the ability to display Flight ID, a radios page shortcut, the current time (including seconds), distance and bearing from a selected waypoint, and current position formatted in latitude and longitude;
- Database sync with Garmin GPS 175, GNC 355, and GNX 375;
- Ability to select a default page to display on startup;
- Shortcut to view charts after tapping on airport, departure, arrival or approach from the Flight Plan page;
- And an option to inhibit terrain alert pop-ups and mute traffic alert pop-ups.
