A Garmin Pilot Testimonial: What’s your back-up plan?

Imagine you’re flying in a smaller airplane on a bright and sunny Sunday morning in visual conditions and soon after take-off, the battery in the airplane begins to display a discharge. No worries, right? You have some time to divert to the nearest airport to get things sorted out. Time is of the essence to conserve electrical power and retain enough to (at the very minimum) communicate with ATC, so it’s time to shut down unnecessary electronics such as your autopilot and even GPS navigator, before they shut themselves off. So, what is your backup navigation source?

This happened to one of our customers, Rob. He was on a flight home from a football game and in his own words below, he describes how Garmin Pilot “saved” him during this particular flight:

Returning from an out of state football game, and soon after takeoff, my battery stopped charging and it was only a matter of time before the voltage would start dropping. I figure at most I have 30 to 40 minutes remaining before the voltage gets to the point of the electronics powering down due to low voltage. Now, I found myself shutting everything off except the transponder and the Garmin 530W to milk the last few precious remaining amps of power.

Heading South I advise Jacksonville Center of my issue and that I may be losing the transponder pretty soon. It was just about then that the avionics were not happy with the low voltage levels and I had to shut the avionics master switch off.

As we were trying to figure what city would likely be the most fun if we were going to be stuck there, I remembered the Garmin Pilot app on my Android phone. Turning on the Droid, the Garmin Pilot app, and enabling the phone’s GPS brought up the home screen. I selected the Direct->To icon and typed in my home airport identifier. Sure enough, the direct-to line came up and was overlaid on the VFR chart pointing the way home.

After a little more button pushing and experimenting with the Garmin Pilot app I found the Navigation button – a feature I had never used. Wow, my phone now has a partial panel navigation display right in front of me with speed, altitude, HSI course-like indicator, VSI, and multiple viewing options. Maybe there won’t be an overnight stop after all.

That was it, the Garmin Pilot app, the hand held radio, and paper maps. Since I was hand flying, I selected the Garmin Pilot app navigation page that shows just the HSI display. I handed the droid to my non-pilot friend and had him call out left or right deviations. This was too easy.

The Garmin Pilot app made my life a lot simpler that day. My only regret is not shutting down the avionics master switch sooner to save enough power to not have to pump the gear down by hand and land with no flaps.

Thanks Garmin! Great product for an unbelievably low price. I’m a believer.

Rob’s story is a great reminder that regardless of the weather conditions (even when it’s sunny and clear!) or if our flights are local or long cross-countries, we need to plan and think ahead of the airplane. It’s integral that pilots have a back-up plan and sometimes when you least expect it, those back-up plans come in the form of Garmin Pilot on your phone at an altitude of 5,500 feet on a sunny Sunday morning.

So, what’s your back-up plan?

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