I’m very much enjoying the IFD540 recently installed in my club’s Archer and equally enjoying learning its features. I’m puzzled about the guidance (well, lack thereof) regarding holds and I’m wondering if I’m doing something wrong.  I did search here, but haven’t found all the answers, so pardon me if these have been asked before.

Pattern Entry - when adding a hold to a flight plan or flying an approach with a hold in lieu, I see that the IFD draws out the pattern entry a long way out, but it doesn’t announce what type of entry until about a nanosecond before the fix, but only for teardrop or parallel, not direct entries.  Is this correct?  Yes, I know - it’s easy enough to figure out on my own. I’m just checking if this is as designed or if there is a setting to toggle. 

Turns - I see no guidance at all for starting turns within a hold nor the heading to which to turn. Correct behavior?  Again, easy enough to figure out on your own, but seems like a navigator of this capability ought to be able to provide such information with ease.  

Bonus question, unrelated to holds… our transponder is a GTX330es, and before the upgrade last month, the GNS showed TIS traffic, but the IFD does not.  Is there a setting to enable this? It’ll be a moot question before too long as a Dynon HDX will be installed soon and that will have its own ADS-B in receiver. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe I read that in 10.3 the Dynon will be able to send ADS-B weather and traffic to the IFD over Wi-Fi, yes?

Thanks for looking and for your help!

As far as holding guidance is concerned; that is dependent on other avionics installed in the aircraft.

When I had the IFD540 originally installed in my Archer, holds had to be manually flown or heading selected around an IFD hold using the IFD map for reference when not on the inbound leg. Now with other upgraded avionics, the autopilot and/or flight director give full holding guidance.