Garmin producing touchscreen GPS units now?

D'ja ever notice that the newest airliners from Boeing and Airbus don't have touch screens? Why do ya think that is? Ya think they just never thought of it? Ya think they figr'd it'd make their $300M+ airplane just too darned expensive for anyone to actually buy one?

I use a Garmin in my car pretty much daily. I started with a unit that lacked a touchscreen and later replaced it with a unit that has a touchscreen. I like the touchscreen a lot... In the car. But I wouldn't fly behind one even if you gave it to me. Airplanes are just too bumpy too often to even consider it. I can't pull over and stop a plane if I have to futz with the GPS like I can when I take the touchscreen Garmin off roadn' in the Jeep.

I've been wrong before but my intuition tells me that if you really want of these for your plane, don't buy it new. Just watch eBay. Because they will surely show up there quickly as people realize that they're just too hard to use in bumpy air.
 
I really don't think that makes much of a difference at all. They are VFR units and are only for situational awareness. What are the chances of it being that rough and needing to be switching something at the same time. I just don't think it would make that much of a difference. The touch screen aera's are easier and faster to use because there is less scrolling and button pushing, you just touch what you want instead of having to hold buttons down and scroll through menus.
 
Oh man I hates me some touchscreens!

Maybe I'm lacking imagination, but there's very little a fixed/static-function device can do that can't be handled gracefully with some soft buttons nearby.
 
BrewMaster said:
I really don't think that makes much of a difference at all. They are VFR units and are only for situational awareness. What are the chances of it being that rough and needing to be switching something at the same time. I just don't think it would make that much of a difference. The touch screen aera's are easier and faster to use because there is less scrolling and button pushing, you just touch what you want instead of having to hold buttons down and scroll through menus.
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In my experience, if you're bringing along a GPS and hauling it out of the flight bag, and programing it, and setting up the mount, and plugging it in, then you're navigating off of it. Whether the regs say you can or not, its most likely your primary nav at that point. Especially VFR but probably also IFR in more instances than you'd expect.

So if you can't futz with it in anything but glass smooth air, then it's going to stay in the flight bag. And if it costs that much and stays in the flight bag most of the time, it's going on eBay. It's entirely possible that Garmin knows something which I don't, but I don't see aviation touch screens selling in large numbers for them.
 
Looking at the comparison between the 496 and 560 on the Garmin website it seems the 560 has the 496 beat for most categories. Yes it is quite a bit of money for what may end up being a bag gadget and auto gps. I wish there was a way to tell if either model would be good for hiking/camping as well. If they added a baro like the trekking models that would be nice too have as well

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/compare.do?cID=156&compareProduct=37817&compareProduct=6426
 
Okie_Pilot said:
I'd like to see something like that. Instead of a dash with your tac/speedometer, oil pressure, temp gauge and all that, just have the G3000. All the pertinent information on the left screen, moving GPS with weather on the middle screen and who knows what on the third. :D
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Obviously the tunes and bluetooth cell phone integration, man!
 
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