Flying Visual Approaches? Synthetic Vision Pathways Can Help

Try this Garmin feature and see if it doesn’t bring you out exactly on the visual glidepath to the airport.

Max Trescott

Tuesday, June 03, 2025 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

While working with new Vision Jet pilots, the author found that they typically struggle in two areas. One is flying arrivals, and the other is flying visual approaches. [Courtesy: Max Trescott]

Key Takeaways:

Garmin's "Pathways" feature, a synthetic vision "highway in the sky" on the PFD, is often perceived as distracting and workload-intensive, despite its aim to enhance flight path precision.
The article introduces a valuable technique for utilizing Pathways to simplify visual approaches, especially when joining the final approach from a base leg or non-straight-in direction.
This method involves loading any approach with vertical guidance, activating "vectors to final," and then adjusting the aircraft's pitch to aim the Flight Path Marker (FPM) at the dynamically displayed Pathways boxes, effectively guiding the pilot onto a precise visual glidepath without complex calculations.

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If you’ve flown in a Garmin glass cockpit with synthetic vision, then you may have seen the “Pathways” feature, a series of constantly moving rectangles on the primary flight display (PFD). Candidly, I’ve never liked Pathways, so I was delighted to recently find a good use for them. Best of all, this tip works in any Garmin glass cockpit with Synthetic Vision Pathways technology, so you can use it in anything from a G1000-equipped Cessna 172, up through Cessna business jets with the G3000 and G5000.

The following comes from my Max Trescott’s G1000 and Perspective Glass Cockpit Handbook: