“We started the WAAS upgrade program in 2003, so we’ve offered WAAS upgrades for the GNS series for over 17 years,” said Jessica Koss, Garmin aviation media relations specialist, noting that the company continues to support the first GNS 430 units some 22 years after they entered service. Whatever we did, it had to be so compelling that existing 430/530 customers would want to upgrade-and that’s not easy when you’ve got a product that pilots know, like, and seems to last forever.” “We had to create something completely new that made flying easier and safer. “We couldn’t just make small, evolutionary changes to a product like the GNS 430/530 and expect people to be satisfied with it,” Gary Kelley, then Garmin vice president of marketing, said at the time. The GNS 430/530 series was popular in the marketplace for more than a dozen years, with about 120,000 units sold by the time Garmin unveiled its successor-the GTN 600/700 series-at the Aircraft Electronics Association convention in March 2011.

The similar GNS 530, with a larger, five-inch-diagonal screen, was introduced later that year. At the time, Garmin promised WAAS upgradability, even though the standard did not yet exist.

The GNS 430 integrated an IFR-approach-approved GPS receiver with a 760-channel com radio and a VOR/localizer/glideslope receiver, along with a sunlight-readable, eight-color LCD display that was large for the day. Garmin announced the GNS 430 in the summer of 1998, and it was revolutionary in general aviation at the time.

Garmin 430 simulator for mac