Does this new GTN visual approach feature provide lateral/vertical guidance which the autopilot can couple to?

Yes. That’s the beauty of it.

That’s very helpful. I agree that nit having the logic to prevent that turn seems odd. At least the readers of this thread are in the know.

Mark,

Can you manually activate the leg if you turn inside the final fix and it doesn’t recognize. Click the runway fix or whatever they have for it and hit activate leg. Not familiar with 750 but this is something I could due on G1000 if it didn’t sequence.

Activating the visual will turn the plane to a 45 degree intercept to the final approach course no matter where you activate it unless you are already within full needle deflection.

If you are flying an approach to Rwy 36 at KXYZ airport and you are 3 mi south of the approach end of the runway and 1 mile west of the extended centerline and you activate it there, your plane will turn to 045 and intercept about a mile and a half out from the runway. It's not clear to me from the simulator what happens with the glideslope in this case, whether it depicts it in which case you could be descending as though you were on a visual base leg or perhaps not? My guess is it does but I haven't figured out how to get the glideslope depiction in the simulator.

I see a couple important take aways:

First, this is intended to be a VISUAL approach aid, not an instrument approach. Sounds obvious but DON'T RELY on this to keep you out of the weeds, use it when you can see what's going on or do a proper instrument approach.

Second, this will NOT drive your autopilot to get you set up for an approach UNLESS a 45 degree intercept will work from the location you are in when you activate it. If you want to have the A/P fly the plane, then either select or create a transition waypoint that is outside the 3 mile waypoint and I would say ideally fairly close in on the side of final you are approaching from, 1-2 miles out and 1 mile laterally looks like good placement. OR fly the plane on the heading bug to position and then activate the visual approach and shift over to Approach mode on the A/P so it can capture both laterally and then vertically.

So here's what it looks like. Note you can choose the visual procedure directly from the map screen, see button at lower left. Also you can choose the visual just like an instrument approach from the procedures page.

I haven't played around with vectors to final a whole lot but my guess is it would behave very similarly to this but you'd need to be further out to get the glideslope to appear (you have to be outside the final approach fix when you activate)

Does VTF include vertical guidance in the GTN?

So is this a technique where we (potentially) lose our ability to actually perform a visual?

The new software update for the GTN 750 includes "Visual Procedures" to most runways and offers lateral and vertical guidance (psuedo glideslope) to most of them. They do NOT guarantee obstacle clearance. They are chosen from the "Procedures" page just like instrument procedures are.

My comment about "Vectors to Final" relates to any instrument approach. Many but not all RNAV instrument approaches now offer vertical guidance -- LNAV with or without advisory glideslope, LNAV/VNAV, LPV. There are some conditions that must be met for the GPS navigator to activate the glideslope. Mostly, you must fly a leg of the approach prior to the final approach fix. That leg can be an actual leg (say IAF fix to FAF or from an IF to FAF) or it can be "Vectors to Final" which basically activates an extension of the final approach course outside of the FAF. If you intercept this generally a couple miles outside of the FAF, the GPS navigator is able to "activate" and transition it's CDI scaling from enroute to terminal to approach tolerances and provide a glideslope when available (which is most of the time). Since FAFs are typically 5nm from the runway, you really need to intercept >= 7nm out to be able to get the glideslope and tighter approach tolerances that let you fly down to the precision approach minimums.

So the interesting thing is that now you can get a glideslope for a visual approach. And you can do it from much closer in to the airport. But it's up to you to get yourself to a position where the box can intercept the final approach and it's up to you to make sure that where you fly prior to descending on the glideslope and even while you're descending on the glideslope maintains adequate terrain and obstacle clearance. Basically, these glideslopes have NOT been reviewed or test flown so you're a bit on your own -- but since you're visual you can see your terrain, right?

Yeah I hear you Chris. I guess the zinger is the thread starts with a whoops at "Bustd". Ill probably just stay with my 300' /mile rule. This tech stuff goes crazy enough on me already. Don't need another excuse to have to "dumb it down". Just stay dumb maybe. Well see.

Since I absolutely never use VTF I don’t even think of it as being part of an approach. Your post reminds that it is the end leg of an approach and I guess there are people who use it stand alone that way.

I can’t 100% remember cause it’s been a while but I thought the Stec55X used the same logic if you hit NAV mode whilst intercepting a track or radial. It set itself up for a 45 degree intercept. So it’s probably standard as such.

FWIW I think the new feature is fantastic and use it all the time. I dont activate it till on final as I like to see if I’m on slope using the normal visual sight etc. it’s satisfying to get it right. So I think it can improve your flying if used in that regard.

Andrew.

KTRK. 29. 90 degree cross wind gusting to 22. Nothing bent. Film at 11

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