Flying the Garmin GFC 500 Autopilot

The full-featured GFC 500 autopilot provides thousands of existing fixed-wing general aviation aircraft with a simple, light-weight and cost-effective autopilot upgrade path. The GFC 500 also has integration potential with the G500 TXi/G600 TXi, G500/G600 as well as G3X Touch flight displays, Garmin navigators, as well as a variety of third-party flight displays, instruments and navigation sources.
The GFC 500 is designed for light single-engine piston fixed wing aircraft and boasts traditional autopilot capabilities along with Indicated airspeed climbs/descents, Electronic Stability and Protection, as well as built-in roll steering.
The GFC 500 also incorporates solid-state attitude and robust self-monitoring capabilities to provide superior autopilot performance, greater reliability and safety benefits. As Garmin continues to broaden its aircraft approval list for the GFC 500, join us for this webinar presentation to learn if a Garmin autopilot is right for you.

[@compasstf]

Keep in mind that the autoswitching of the 750 when navigating via GPS to intercept and fly a VLOC-based approach such as ILS or VOR (and a long-time feature of the Avidyne 4xx/5xx navigators) will cause a coupled Garmin GFC 500 autopilot to drop off the NAV/APR mode and revert to default ROLL mode because of 'loss' of the navigation signal when switching from GPS to VLOC. This is annunciated on the G5's AFCS Status Box, but if you aren't including that top line of the G5 PDF in your scan, you will miss the annunciation and thus wonder why the autopilot (or flight director) isn't tracking the now-green CDI.

[@brianchristopher4493]

This AP is a God send. Single pilot IFR workload is dramatically reduced and much safer, I have had a few quirky things with mine but all in all it has been a rock. I love the "Panic button" too. I also learned a valuable lesson recently on an IFR flight plan. That $40,000 dollars worth of HIGH TECH Avionics can be reduced to paper weights in about 15 minutes when the contactor to the ALTERNATOR goes bad. A $100 dollar part, takes down a dash full of life saving technology. This is called FLY THE PLANE! If you have any money left after a new dash full of Garmin gear, get that ALTERNOTOR checked or referbed and if your Contactor is more than 5-8 years old. Just put a new one on. Or at least have one on stand by. CFC500 is the best money ever spent on my airplane...

[@RonMarish]

Best autopilot ever made

[@krucks1931]

This is awesome!

[@Bigpeat190]

V.V.M - Verbalize - “Auto pilot engaged” Visualize - visualize that the AP is active and MONITOR that it remains active

[@ParadigmUnkn0wn]

So this is what ATC mics sound like without all the radio compression. Is this the Potato 1000 or the Potato 2000?

[@klrowley427]

Need help!!!! My G500 Autopilot doesn't work with IAS. E.g., VS at (500) fpm is rock solid. IAS at any speed (90 kts) goes from stall speed to max aircraft speed and back and forth. Very unpleasant ride. Avionics shop called Garmin and couldn't fix it. I have it recorded on my memory card and a video with my phone camera. Really want this to work on my plane.

[@rainerzufall689]

A proper microphone would have made this even better!

[@Heyemeyohsts]

Lol

[@victorburns3620]

Its like they used a $5 one huh!