On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 12:31:36 GMT, "A. Smith"
wrote:


"Roger" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 18:37:26 GMT, "A. Smith"
wrote:


Transitioning to, or learning on a glass panel does not need to be
difficult or take hours and hours of training. To do so means some
very important steps have been left out of the learning cycle, or the
cycle was not taken in logical order.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

I don't know that I can agree with you Roger. I recently had a chance to
fly a Cessna 421C with the Chelton Synthetic Vision TM installed. I had
no
previous experience with EFIS and had only a short time to read the basics
out of the manual. My flight was about 1 1/2 hours in VFR and I had a

You are pointing out just what I said. The problems come when the
transition is attempted to be made in total instead of incrementally.

The learning pilot, whether IFR or primary student doesn't have these
problems, or shouldn't if the training on the glass panel is done
incrementally.

I see your point. If the glass panel can be learned from the ab initio
state it will just be normal procedure. I am looking at it from the
viewpoint of someone who has been flying gauges for years. You can't just
read the book, file a flightplan and blast-off into 200 and 1/2. Wouldn't
be prudent! (:-)

Talk about mental overloadLOL
In addition to using the old "steam gages", I earned the instrument
rating in the Deb which of course did not make it easier. It's a plane
that really needs an autopilot when flying instruments to reduce the
work load and being nearly neutral in stability you can't let your
attention wander. Of course as a student I had to hand fly everything
with just enough autopilot use thrown in to prove I knew how to use
it. Once earning the rating and being able to use the autopilot
instrument flying became a whole lot easier.

In its day the Deb had a fancy panel with a complete King Silver Crown
stack topped off with a KNS-80 RNAV. It's not even a standard T
layout, but it sure is nice for partial panel.

I've also had various flight sims for years and a computer background.
I used LORAN in the Cherokee 180 and then for the Deb I picked up a
Garmin 195, followed by the 295 when it came out. So my introduction
to GPS and programming in flight plans came over several years. From
there I found flying by the glass panel to be natural. I should say I
find the flight instruments easier to fly by than the old steam gages
as every thing is in one place which simplifies the scan. Still,
going to a new (and different) system takes a while to learn to
program. Too bad there isn't a standard for controls and inputs.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com


Allen