On July 4th, 2006 I flew my first LPV approach and all I can say is that the GNS-480 is the most revolutionary product for the instrument pilot introduced in my life time. Flying an LPV approach really is just like an ILS and I still can't get over how incredibly easy it was to fly my first approach. I have had a chance to fly some long actual IFR flights with the GNS-480 and this GPS is simply the best GPS for the IFR pilot. It is very easy to use and is perfectly matched to the way pilots fly on an IFR flight plan. The displayed airways makes situation awareness a snap. Whenever I look at the display it matches my enroute chart exactly and I always know that I have entered the flight plan correctly. I can't stress enough how great it is to have airways in the database. On all other GPS receivers I had to trick the GPS into plotting a course over the airway. The GNS-480 has so many more optional display fields than any other GPS. The ability to set up different pages with the navigational data exactly the way I want it is fantastic. If I want to monitor what my transponder is sending to ATC I just move to the page I have set up with the transponder altitude and the GNS-480 automatically displays the corrected altitude that matches my indicated altitude. I also have the GTX-33 and now that I have had a chance to use the TIS aircraft display on the GNS-480 I am really glad I went for the mode S option. My oldest son recently received his instrument rating and when he used the GNS-480 for the first time he quickly learned how to enter approaches and commented on how easy it was to transition from the other GPS units he had used.

The Garmin CNX-80 in action at Charlottesville