Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Commercial
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 6; Flight Crew Total 1700; Flight Crew Type 65
Confusion; Human-Machine Interface; Situational Awareness
Airspace Violation All Types; Deviation - Speed All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR
Flight Crew Exited Penetrated Airspace; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors; Aircraft
I departed 1H0 and climbed to 1600 ft MSL which is near the floor of St. Louis' Class B airspace. After passing a 'cake ring'; I climbed to about 2500-3000 ft. When I saw another cake ring appear on the Garmin 530W navigator; I was unable to quickly ascertain the floor of the segment I was in. I quickly descended to about 1100 ft; probably exceeding 250 kts indicated because I was carrying full power in anticipation of a climb; not a descent. I was in a hurry to get down and didn't think of the speed issue until later. I leveled off about 1100 ft MSL and tried to figure out the cake ring altitudes on my tablet; using the Avare app. The tablet lost its GPS signal and locked up. As I was working to figure out the altitude restrictions; I saw some buildings go under my left wing; which made me think I might be over a populated area. And at 1100 MSL; I was only about 640 ft AGL. By then; there were no more buildings in sight; so I continued trying to figure out the altitude restrictions; this time on my Garmin 696 portable GPS. By the time I was able to pan over to the cake rings and decode them; I was clear of Class B airspace. I climbed to 7500 ft and continued to my destination [north bound]. So in summary; I had 3 issues: 1) entering class B airspace without authorization; 2) too fast in Class B airspace; and 3) too low over a populated area. The latter two issues resulted from the first one.Contributing factors: It is difficult to find the altitudes for Class B airspace on a Garmin 530W while hand flying a plane. The backup tablet locked up when it lost its GPS signal. And I had to pan to the rings on the portable GPS to show the needed information.What I plan to do about it: Clearly; I need to do a better job with situational awareness prior to entering high workload conditions; and I will. I learned a valuable lesson about that through this experience. But I also plan to put a PFD and MFD in the plane as soon as possible so the information is displayed right in the panel.
Pilot reported departing 1H0 northbound using a Garmin 530W to show the Class B airspace above. During the climb; the reporter became confused as to the floor of the Class B ring in his immediate vicinity and quickly dived to 1100 feet; exceeded 250 knots; and descended below 1;000 feet AGL over a populated area.