Garmin Aera 500 in the cockpit, aural call out errors!

N47053 C152 11/6/2010, 12pm

This was my 3rd and final landing at El Monte Airport after flying pattern.

Usually, my Garmin Aera 500 will give me a "500" ft AGL warning while on final, but this time, it was AFTER I had landed! It worked fine the first 2 landings. You can hear it functioning correctly for yourself on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVaodiRjHrs

I knew from my last cross-country flight the altitude could not be replied upon 100%, but I've never had it this far off!

I would not have problems with this type of inaccuracy if it was mentioned as possibility, but the manual does not provide such a warning other than general "VFR usage" disclaimer.

Maybe the engineers never thought this type of error would ever surface.

I'm starting to think since I never went higher than 1,300 MSL, the GPS wasn't able tell the difference between landing and enroute cruise. So for pattern work, the GPS does not function correctly.

Maybe someone else has experienced this. Comments are welcome.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• garmin
• aera
• 500
• callout
• errors

[mechmove]

@shmiddy123 Yes the 500 call is standard. There are other calls as well, related to terrain / obstacles, / antenna farms, but they are dependent upon accurate altitude, which as seen can be questionable. My Aera is the base model, not sure if the other models support user-definable call-outs; I doubt it. That all said, the steering (Roll) mode works well, as seen by the track that gets recorded on every flight. I think this is a great unit for the VFR pilot even with the problems.

[shmiddy123]

are the callout standard with the aera 500? or an add on, do the have 1000ft 100ft callouts ect?, thinking of getting one, would be a great feature