Feature request to Garmin

Hi all,

my first posting on this forum! Albeit I am not a Vans aircraft user, I find this community to be very much bleeding edge, and thus I believe that other european Garmin users might also chime in with their comments and support.

I have just sent a small feature request to Garmin to enhance my 296, which I believe is an incredible piece of equipment.

In Europe, we measure runways in meters, and unfortuntely the Garmins display them only in feet when "nautical" units are selected in the menu. My request to Garmin is to add another box in the Units menu, so people can choose whether to use feet or meters for runway dimensions.

Here is the text of the message that I just sent to Garmin using their support web page found at http://www.garmin.com/contactUs/techSupport.jsp

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This is a small feature request rather than a request for support, which would make life better for us on the European side of the pond.

The problem is related to the unit used to display the runways dimensions in the Airport Details pages. Over here in Europe, we use meters for runway dimensions, instead of feet, and unfortunately this is not working properly in the 296.

In this screenshot of the Units menu:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5615/unitsmenu7az.jpg

I have selected metric, and when doing this, the runway dimensions are correctly displayed in meters, like this:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/9642/lirurwymeters4mc.jpg

But since we use feet, knots and nautical miles on airplanes, when I select "nautical" in the Units menu, the runway dimensions are also automatically displayed in feet, like this:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/1343/lirurwyfeet5kk.jpg

In a nutshell, I would request that a further data input box in the Units menu be added, labelled "Runways" with options feet and meters, so that one could choose to have nautical units *and* runways displayed in meters, solving the issue that we Europeans have.

Thanks for an excellent product!

Best regards,

Luca Bertagnolio
Belgium/Italy

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The three screenshots I made to clarify my requests are these:







If other European users of Garmin GPS units might want to send once more this request using the Garmin web page I linked above, maybe we can make our voice stronger, and this small featurette might be included in a future software release, who knows! It simply takes a copy and paste of what I have written between the dashed lines above, no big deal!

Many thanks for your comments and support.

Best regards,

Luca Bertagnolio
Belgium/Italy

Hello Luca,

The 296 has had the feature you're asking about since 2004... you might want to upgrade your software!

http://www.garmin.com/support/agree.jsp?id=889

cheers,
mcb

Hi Matt,

mburch said:

The 296 has had the feature you're asking about since 2004... you might want to upgrade your software!

Click to expand...

not sure I follow you here... I am running 4.10 (not the latest, but new enough) and I still see runways in feet if I select nautical units, and meters if I select metric.

Problem is, I want to read runway lenghts and widths in meters instead of feet, like we do in Europe, even if I have nautical units.

Let me know if I am missing something obvious here...

Bye, Luca

Luca,

You need to change your "Distance and Speed" units setup item to "Nautical (nm, kt, m)".

mcb

Matt,

mburch said:

You need to change your "Distance and Speed" units setup item to "Nautical (nm, kt, m)".

Click to expand...

oh well, problem solved!

My mistake came from the fact that I had never seen the "Nautical (nm, kt, m)" item in the "Distance and Speed" menu, and of course the manual does not help... When I saw it, I assumed that altitude would also become meters, but then there is the "Altitude" menu set to "Feet (ft)"... things are exactly as I was hoping!

Now, I am curious to see if Garmin will reply telling me what you just said, or if they will say nothing...

Great to be part of such a community!

Thanks, Luca