The Garmin AT CNX80 is the first – and so far only – general aviation WAAS box approved for both LNAV/VNAV and LPV approaches.

By Ken Ibold

Everyone knew it was coming, but the oft-delayed entry of the wide area augmentation system into the world of GPS is still somewhat startling in its potential.

At the very least, WAAS promises more reliable and more accurate GPS coverage than ever before. GPS is working properly about 95 percent of the time, but WAAS engineers have set the reliability bar at 99.999 percent reliability by the end of 2006. Step up your expectations a notch and you’ll get better instrument approaches into far more airports than is currently possible. Dream long enough and you’ll see datalinked freeflight followed by precision approaches into just about everywhere. …