More Buttonology

I have been reading posts on the POA forum about training scenarios. The first questioned DME fixes for the Garmin 430/530.

The scenario:

I'm in Inverness Florida, headed to Tallahassee. I tell Fore Flight KINF-KTLH, and ask its route advisor what ATC's been giving for clearance between those two points. The "Airway" option that it gives me is ridiculously routed, but the "ATC Cleared" list gives four really good routes between the two airports. Trick is, they all involve navigating to a DME fix. One of them reads:

KINF-SZW128R/081-KTLH

Take off, and go directly to the 81 DME spot on the 128 radial of the SZW VOR, then KTLH. Easy. Except I don't know how to tell the Garmin to do that. I could stick a user waypoint there, but I can't legally navigate to that user waypoint in IFR. If it were a named fix or intersection, that would be pretty straightforward. But it's not.

An ATP buddy tells me that entering "SZW 128/81" will do it on the FMS in his Embraer, but the GNS 430W not so much.

Anybody know how to do this? I haven't gotten a clearance like this yet, though I know it's coming - just trying to stay ahead of the airplane.

The Solution:

Lets take a look at this then chug and plug away on the Garmin 530 online sim. Please excuse the ancient online sim, it still lists Iverness Florida as X40 instead of KINF.



On the 430/530 you select the WPT menu with the large outside knob on the bottom right. Once on the WPT menu you use the small inside knob and select the last screen as seen above.



Once the waypoint is created you will have to go to FPL and get it entered for your flight. Once in FPL highlight the first open entry and select the user waypoint you created and named A. When you select it you may be asked to verify duplicate waypoints, select user waypoint.

Once A is selected and confirmed your FPL screen should now show the first leg of your flight. Add the final destination for this scenario, KTLH - Tallahassee and you're ready to go.

Now if you have Foreflight and the Flight Stream 210 you can save all the chugging & plugging on the 430/530 and upload from the iPad. For this flight I opened up the Foreflight flight plan and in the edit mode entered the following; (X40)KINF SZW/128/81 KTLH. I hit the ((+)) and uploaded to the 430/530.

Just some fun reading today online and useful what if scenarios to practice on the ground instead of in the air and IMC. If you have some good practice sim ideas please feel free to share.