Data Input Question

The system is however not behaving as quoted above from p42 of the IM. That is, I get the "Manual Sequence Req'd" message on a heading-to-altitude leg despite the statement that GPS Altitude is used in this case with 10.1.0 or later.

This is for a SID where there is no turn, just a single leg straight out departure to an 8nm fix at the end of the SID, which just happens to also be the IAF for the ILS to the reciprocal runway and the SID says to track out to the fix using the LOC for guidance. There is no altitude mentioned on the Jepp chart for this leg.

There is a difference in behaviour between the SIM and the IFD. In the SIM, there are 2 legs in the departure. The first is a climb to 1710' (400' above airport altitude) and the second is to the fix on the same track. The FPL automatically selects the fix as the active leg, so the track-to-altitude issue doesn't arise and the SIM just flies directly to the fix.

The departure looks the same in the IFD, but at takeoff the first leg is active (track-to-altitude), and the "Manual sequence req'd" message is presented. The second leg to the fix needs to be manually activated.

Does anyone see anything different for heading-to-altitude without baro-altitude on 10.1.0 or later? Looks to me like a documentation error. It would be nice to know with which software release the use of GPS Altitude will become effective.

I suspect that the actual departure in the IFD is a coding error on the part of Jepp since there is no altitude mentioned on the Jepp SID chart.

Simpson?

I have not attempted to utilize the baro or GPS altitude feature you describe.  I can imagine a box that is designed to generate its own "proceed direct to the first fix" instruction based upon an altitude input that tells the box it's reached 400 feet AGL based upon navdata info concerning field elevation.  If the IFD has that capability, that's interesting for sure, but I for one would not use it just out of personal preference and technique.  In any case, from the pilot's perspective, a box with that capability would seem to sequence automatically and at the right time and place.  But it would be doing so not based upon anything in Jeppesen's navdata, which of course cannot include the coordinates of that 400 foot turn point.  It would be doing so because a box with that capability is designed to take a baro or GPS altitude input, and be programmed to activate a "direct to" leg to the first fix in the flight plan (be it a SID or enroute fix) when it reaches 400 AGL above the origin airport in the flight plan.

Taken together, the comments in the PG and IM you identified suggest that all of us who have the recent software upgrades have GPS derived altitude (at least) being used by the IFD to automatically sequence from runway heading to the first fix on the SID at the appropriate altitude, assuming the initial heading and altitude info is included in the navdata.  On all my IFR departures I seem to get radar vectors, so I likely will not be able to take much advantage of this IFD capability much of the time.  Since I had not noticed the PG and IM provisions, I've not tested my IFD to see whether it actually has that capability.