I guess I'm an old fart, I think that making it so easy that
mental skills might degrade. Just as PC users get used to
having spell-check, G1000 users might become so dependent
and "lazy" that they would have real problem with a failure
of the G1000 and the comm. radios.


"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
| "Jim Macklin"
wrote:
| The solid state gyros are the best thing IMHO, the
weakness
| in the small GA airplanes is the poor sensitivity and
| accuracy of the gyros and the small size of the
displays.
| If you get to fly a King Air class airplane, with a gyro
| package and displays that cost more than a new G1000
Cessna
| 172, you'll see 5 or 6 inch AI and HSI, in a dual
| [independent] panel. It is easy to control and steady.
| There is real performance monitoring of the gyros, not
just
| a failure on the power flag.
|
| Once you've got all electronic data in one place like a
G1000 does, I would
| think it would fairly straight forward to do some basic
data consistency
| checking.
|
| For example, if the AI says you're in a 10 degree nose-up
attitude, but
| airspeed is near the top of the green arc and increasing
(and altitude is
| decreasing), something has to be wrong. Likewise, if the
AI says you're
| wings level, but your heading keeps changing, something
has to be wrong (I
| know, you need to factor in the slip/skid data, but you've
got that too).
|
| It's all the same cross-check we learned to do in
instrument training, but
| done by a machine that never gets bored, distracted, or
confused. It may
| have other failure modes, but bordom, distraction, and
confusion are not
| among them. Those are reserved for the wetware.