Very true.
However, nobody I know has ever been able to provide a reference for the alleged inability of an IFR GPS to accept computer-generated routes.
And such a facility has long existed higher upmarket. I don't know about airline FMS systems but Chelton have for years been offering a means of transferring a route via an SD card.
I think what has been done here is that Garmin certified a piece of software which pics up a routepack from Flitestar (and maybe some other flight planning software; there are a few other options in the USA) and performs the very narrow function of converting this routepack into a waypoint list which is then written as a pure text file to the flash cartridge.
And a similarly narrow-function bit of software in the GNSx30W reads this file, verifying each waypoint name as it goes.
This is a long way from the GPS accepting a whole route spec directly from a PC - that would require doing some sort of reliability analysis on Windoze which is clearly impossible. I think the key is that the transfer is done via a flash card, which probably carries just a pure text file.
There may be some authentication in the file, otherwise it would be trivial for anybody to generate that file themselves, write it on the card, and plug it in
And save themselves $500 (or £500 in the UK
).
Are the Garmin flash cards protected in some way, or can they be freely read/written in any CF writer (assuming they are CF - clearly they have a different form factor).