Glass Panel Training

On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:44:27 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

We just added a glass 172 to the fleet. There's a learning
curve for us older guys but the young will get it easily. The airplane
still flies like a 172, the PFD is no harder to read than the steam
gauges after a few minutes, and anyone with a few hours solo in a 172
could fly it safely. The bigger learning involves the multiple pages
and functions of the MFD and the procedures taken if an electrical
problem arises. Most 172s have one electrical bus, maybe two if it has
an avionics master. The glass airplane has SIX buses and you need to
know their management.

I don't thinl, in the PPL, that the aforementioned flight training
school teaches those things. Even if they did, what value does that have
to a newbie pilot who finds that Cessnas dominate the rental
marketplace?

There was a similar steam-gauge versus digital argument when
digital watches and clocks and calculators came out. Expensive they
were, but actually cheaper to build since much of the assembly is
easily automated as opposed to the old units with tiny gears and
levers and sensitive and fragile bits, just like an airplane's
instruments. Whether we like it or not, glass is going to become the
norm on newer airplanes, not just because of its capabilities nor its
selling power, but because it's cheaper to make. And many older
aircraft will get retrofitted once the competition builds and the
glass makers have to take less profit and find new markets.

This is a valid argument and is the one that EAA flight training makes.
But in this time when the next few years, money is tighter and newbies
fewer, I am not sure this makes initial sense in the training regimen.

So find a school with glass and get with it. Or fool with a
simulator that has it.

When I walk out to rent a plane, 4 of 5 have steam gauges. The remaining
are more expensive. It's not getting with it, it's practicality
especially in today's ever increasing demands on new GA pilots, Dan.

Glass is a superior system in many ways, that I have no argument with.