Interesting...

I noticed that the article (I also didn't read the .pdf) mentions glass in production planes. Those mentioned were high performance planes, so it may have more to do with being able to handle the plane then the glass panel.

I'll try to read the .pdf latter.

Kent
 
In a perfect world, there really should be no difference between glass and steam. Both provide attitude reference in very similar ways.

The advantage comes in situational awareness. Especially in an IFR setting.

One of the hardest thing to teach an instrument student on a traditional steam panel, with no moving map, is the 3D situational awareness you need to have in your head. You need to be able to have that mental moving map by just reading needles. Some people pick it up right away, some it takes a little longer... I only ever had one student where the light bulb just never came on.

That last student was pre-G1000 days, and I'm certain he could've done just fine with a system like that... however someone that earns their ticket on a nice glass panel may never develop the mental SA skills to revert back to steam.

The basic monkey skills though of keeping the dirty side down, I really can't think of a good arguement either way. Steam provides more redundancy in my mind though, as a simple back light failure can render your entire attitude source inop. Glass has it's own advantages.

It really all comes down to the man in the box, as always.
 
Well, I have been reminded just this week on how different a glass cockpit is to a glass cockpit, never mind steam.
I converted onto a new aircraft type that did not softly read out the airspeeds through the headset on finals - and had to actually look at the panel to figure out how my speed was doing rather than keep my eyes on the runway. While not a complete show stopper (one gets used to it) I missed it badly. I found the constant panel scan required highly irritating.
Yes, after some 15 years of exclusive flying behind glass I refuse to get behind a steam panel as I know I am not current with this and even struggle to get the altitude from a three pointer dail. IFR using needles ? You gotta be kidding ! I admire anybody that can do that. Yes - truly. I can't. With glass - no problem.
Is that good or bad ? Or is it just the way things are going ?

Rainier
CEO MGL Avionics
 
Glass vs Steam

It is real nice to enjoy glass that is affordable compared to certified glass.

Affordable Glass, yea!
 
Rainier Lamers said:
I converted onto a new aircraft type that did not softly read out the airspeeds through the headset on finals - and had to actually look at the panel to figure out how my speed was doing rather than keep my eyes on the runway. While not a complete show stopper (one gets used to it) I missed it badly.

Rainier
CEO MGL Avionics
Click to expand...

My wife reads airspeed off to me when I ask her to. I also have minimum speeds labeled in front of her for no/half/full flap configurations. If I get close to min speeds she will let me know even if I don't ask. I showed her full gross, full flap stall (53 kias), so she knows what happens when. Also why a/s is so important to our livelyhood.
 
Really?

Rainier Lamers said:
Well, I have been reminded just this week on how different a glass cockpit is to a glass cockpit, never mind steam.
I converted onto a new aircraft type that did not softly read out the airspeeds through the headset on finals - and had to actually look at the panel to figure out how my speed was doing rather than keep my eyes on the runway. While not a complete show stopper (one gets used to it) I missed it badly. I found the constant panel scan required highly irritating.
Yes, after some 15 years of exclusive flying behind glass I refuse to get behind a steam panel as I know I am not current with this and even struggle to get the altitude from a three pointer dail. IFR using needles ? You gotta be kidding ! I admire anybody that can do that. Yes - truly. I can't. With glass - no problem.
Is that good or bad ? Or is it just the way things are going ?

Rainier
CEO MGL Avionics
Click to expand...

I admit that the moving map display is a good situational awareness tool but the rest of this is a stretch of trust and tends to support the AOPA ASF assessment.

IMG_4766.jpg


Bob Axsom
 
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Sig600 said:
One of the hardest thing to teach an instrument student on a traditional steam panel, with no moving map, is the 3D situational awareness you need to have in your head. You need to be able to have that mental moving map by just reading needles. Some people pick it up right away, some it takes a little longer... I only ever had one student where the light bulb just never came on.
Click to expand...

Its a well documented fact that a large fraction of the population has difficulty with 3D visualization. I run into this all the time in my job teaching geology, which requires some 3D thinking. Some students "get it" easily and some just don't. Its not correlated with intelligence or attitude; it has to do with differences in how peoples' brains are wired.

Moving maps and other glass cockpit innovations address this problem directly, and therefore might make IFR flight more accessible to a larger group of potential pilots? If so this seems like a good thing. As you suggest however, glass cockpits might make less difference to those who naturally have strong 3D visualization.

Its interesting that the report also hints that glass cockpits may actually be less safe in the traffic pattern, possibly due to pilots putting too much attention inside the cockpit.
 
If you bother to read all the accident reports for years and years, as I have done, you'll see that somewhere along the line.......even high time pilots with many hours of IFR in their logbooks, screw up.

At least a good visual presentation of surounding terrain, is much better than nothing..........when there is only a few seconds between survival and being smashed like a bug. Unfortunately, out here in the mountain west, the mountains are dotted with the smashed bug effect.

Basically, I say the **** with mental images, and bring on the equipment that can produce a perfect visual concept of what the ground looks like, with accuracy of a few feet. It's now possible, so lets do it!

L.Adamson

P.S. --- heat seeking infrared scans for motorcycles wouldn't hurt either. I didn't know I needed one, until a suicidal deer leaped off a cliff with less than a second warning in front of me. I wouldn't have minded an air bag either. Until you've been in situations such as this, you might not appreciate what at instant visual image of impending disaster can do for you. Seeing a deer on an electronic screen a block ahead would have been just dandy! The same applies to aircraft & terrain.
 
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This is interesting as it was in fact my wife that used to do the same and I found that very helpful as I was getting used to a new aircraft at the time. This was the reason I added this capability very quickly into our EFIS systems as she is not always in the PAX seat.
But I have got so used to this I am now uneasy when it is no longer there. I like to be able to keep my eyes completely outside the aircraft on finals - it's the EFIS's job to tell me if there is anything I need to know...

Rainier

Wayne Gillispie said:
My wife reads airspeed off to me when I ask her to. I also have minimum speeds labeled in front of her for no/half/full flap configurations. If I get close to min speeds she will let me know even if I don't ask. I showed her full gross, full flap stall (53 kias), so she knows what happens when. Also why a/s is so important to our livelyhood.
Click to expand...
 
Alan Carroll said:
Its interesting that the report also hints that glass cockpits may actually be less safe in the traffic pattern, possibly due to pilots putting too much attention inside the cockpit.
Click to expand...

I find the opposite is the case. The EFIS allows you to ignore the panel provided it has a means of communicating with you (via voice in the headsets). This means I almost never look at the panel more than just giving it a glance (if that) when I'm in the circuit. My eyes are outside and scanning like a radar dish and on short finals, in particular in bad wind conditions, I'm totally focused on the runway with the EFIS softly reading out the airspeeds right to the point of touch down.
Of course this is different in IMC or with IFR rules - in that case the eyes are mostly on the panel - but in that case this is just perfect anyway (not much to see outside).

Rainier
CEO MGL Avionics
 
I have about 1500 hours in a Metroliner with steam gauges and no autopilot, hand flying through all kinds of weather, shooting approaches to minimums, missed approaches, all that. The non-flying pilot helps the workload with checklists and calling out "runway in sight", but it's demanding flying nonetheless. Boy did I have a good scan in those days!

I have several thousand hours in glass cockpits with autopilots. Same kind of wx and also with a copilot. I remember when some of us from our initial training class were upgrading to Captain in the Metros - the guys that had been FO's in the Saabs had a much harder time passing the upgrade in the Metros, because they were used to glass and autopilots. When I upgraded to the Brasilia with glass and an autopilot, I remember had the most trouble managing the autopilot. In some ways at first it actually seemed to add to my workload - it just seemed easier to scan and fly - it was what I was used to.

Once I got used to it, I liked the glass a lot better, there was more information available and better organized, but I also liked knowing that I could handfly the plane if I had to, and many times I would do just that to keep my chops up. I also had my two PFD's fail on me during my IOE on the Brasilia. Nice expensive Honeywell stuff I think it was. And we trained every 6 months for multiple failures in the sim. Glass can fail in so many more ways than steam. If you've got all that nice stuff, you better know exactly what you are going to do if it fails in bad weather, and practice that regularly. I flew almost 100 hours/month in those days.

I have about 1200 hours flying Pitts and Extras X-country with nothing more than a compass, handheld GPS, airspeed, altimeter, and engine gauges. That's the safest way to fly VFR, in my opinion. You know you don't have weather capability, so you are cautious about bad wx and don't push it. You don't fly at night. Your head is outside the cockpit most of the time, because there is just not much to look at inside! I think having more stuff in the plane has a very real danger of making the pilot more complacent, and more willing to fly in dubious conditions.

Safety in flying is all about managing risk. That's why the results of the study don't surprise me. I feel like I have a fair amount of experience flying with glass, without it, and with minimal equipment. I have experience with the strengths and limitations of each. Ultimately, it does come down to the man in the box, and knowing exactly what you and the aircraft are really capable of, and not ever getting (as my first instructor used to say all the time) "fat, dumb, and happy". :)
 
I do not believe that glass with fancy terrain offers any real safety flying VFR in mountainous areas. Look outside.

I flew a 7A with a Skyview and I found that my monitoring of the airspeed in the pattern initially was not as good as my 6A steam gauges. That may be attributable to interpreting the linear Skyview airspeed readout versus just knowing where a needle should be on a steam gauge ASI.
 
I have tryed to train myself on my simulator to feel the positional awareness, and it's tough
 
Ron Lee said:
I do not believe that glass with fancy terrain offers any real safety flying VFR in mountainous areas. Look outside.

I flew a 7A with a Skyview and I found that my monitoring of the airspeed in the pattern initially was not as good as my 6A steam gauges. That may be attributable to interpreting the linear Skyview airspeed readout versus just knowing where a needle should be on a steam gauge ASI.
Click to expand...

I have a lot of information on VFR flights, that unintentionally became IMC flights. A "whole lot"! These were in daytime as well as night. In most cases, the pilot and passengers are no longer with us. Even the ground levels can be very deceiving in some "light" weather conditions. Some were even good friends and acquaintances. I don't take this subject lightly.

L.Adamson
 
Ron Lee said:
I do not believe that glass with fancy terrain offers any real safety flying VFR in mountainous areas. Look outside.
Click to expand...

Yet people still crash flying up valleys while looking outside the whole time and not noticing the airspeed drop off... Surely anything that helps break visual illusions and warns of terrain and airspeed has got to be a win even in VFR conditions.

I liked the mention in the TAA report of the straight and level button, Garmin's ESP and the possibility of active terrain avoidance too. Imagine how many people would still be here if aircraft AP simply wouldn't let you stall in a low speed turn, or if the EFIS warned that you don't have enough turn clearance to get out of the valley you're flying up the middle of (so you'd better fly up the side instead). Integrating aircraft control, a terrain database, and knowledge of the aircraft performance opens up a lot of possibilities.
 
Rainier Lamers said:
I find the opposite is the case. The EFIS allows you to ignore the panel provided it has a means of communicating with you (via voice in the headsets). This means I almost never look at the panel more than just giving it a glance (if that) when I'm in the circuit. My eyes are outside and scanning like a radar dish and on short finals, in particular in bad wind conditions, I'm totally focused on the runway with the EFIS softly reading out the airspeeds right to the point of touch down.

Rainier
CEO MGL Avionics
Click to expand...

Do the G1000 and other certified EFIS's have voice callouts? I think the AOPA report only considered certified equipment.
 
Decision making

By that I mean the decision I make to equip my airplane with an EFIS and an EIS or with so-called steam guages. I can't decide or control what the statistics will show and while there may be lessons to be learned, I really only have one decision to make - what I want to fly.

I learned to fly long before there was "glass" and even got my IFR ticket that way. When we bought our C-150 my wife insisted we upgrade it to IFR and that we get me current again. Done. This is just to establish my cred.

Now I have a glass panel and you can see a picture of it on the site linked below. You may not care what I think, but then, you might. I think that I am much safer now. I am absolutely convinced of it. But, since I have not crashed, I cannot produce any statistics! I just hope this helps the current builders on this forum to make an informed decision.

Might others make in-flight decisions while using glass that they would not have made with steam? Perhaps. And perhaps bad things happened. I know some (skilled, IFR) pilots who are very critical of Cirrus "drivers" who they see as too reliant on the glass and really unprepared - in terms of system comprehension and familiarity - for the IFR flying they are doing. They base this on what the hear on the radios. My limited experience with one Cirrus pilot tends to support that.

With my panel, I have stable heading and attitude readings. I have repeatable precision. I have no turning or acceleration error on the heading. I have information integrated well because the attitude indicator, the turn indicator and the heading indicators are overlaid and tightly grouped so that I don't have to scan the way I did. I also have the VOR/ILS needles overlaid on the artificial horizon display. Part of the glass is, of course, GPS (which I had in the C-150, too) with its own battery and its own display and with the well-known Garmin "six pack" page. That's also part of the redundancy. But I also have two screens and a separate read-out on the EIS and an autopilot with its own magnetic heading reference if needed. My EFIS has the basic EIS information in a band at the bottom so I don't have to look way over to the right as before. I also have a big red light that the EIS uses to tell me when something is out of acceptable range or even when it is time to change tanks. Although mine does not talk to me, I like what Ranier is saying. I would not go back, either.

I hesitate to admit it, but I've accidentally found myself either in or above the clouds, two or three times while still in the pattern on a VFR departure. The glass panel, including GPS, makes this a non-event. On one similar occasion, I was going to ferry a Cirrus driver to his plane about 30 miles away (VFR, KDET to KARB with KDTW class B in between) and the WX was supposed to be OK. But, it wasn't and we had to turn back and then found ourselves above a thin layer that had closed in and obscured the airport. It took 3 tries to get onto the approach without leaving the immediate area of DET (which in hindsight would have been better), but we were never in danger of being lost or hitting anything. My passenger was not an IFR pilot and he was very unhappy looking at towers sticking up through the cotton. Again, having a good GPS and instruments that don't make you work to understand what they are saying counts for safety in my opinion. Better pilot judgment would have been good, too, but the WX can fool you.
 
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