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EFIS endorsement

Flyer59 wrote:

I mean flying with somebody who is an expert with the glass cockpit I want to fly.

Unfortunately EASA requires you to fly with an FI. That in most cases means flying somebody who is not an expert in your EFIS. That’s what I meant.

I might add:

There’s tens of thousands of GNS430s flying out there. Now ask the average club pilot or charter pilot with the average flight hours per year how he finds the Nearest Airport. I do that all the time when doing PPL check flights (about ten per year) and 75 percent of all pilots I fly with have no idea how it works. They can all do frequency or direct, and that’s it.

Unfortunately EASA requires you to fly with an FI. That in most cases means flying somebody who is not an expert in your EFIS. That’s what I meant.

Or a CRI, like me. There’s many FI’s today who can teach a beginner the basics of the G1000. Not so many for the Aspen and and very few for the Avidyne, I know. When I bought the SR22 I contacted boscomantico via eMail and he taught me. If you are interested in something you will always find an expert who will teach you.

Last Edited by Flyer59 at 05 Jul 10:29

Maybe these things should be grandfathered though. If you look though someones logbook and see they have hundreds of hours in glass cockpit aeroplanes, then they should be automatically endorsed IMHO.

EGHS

What is the actual legal position?

If you fly an N-reg, then April 2016 onwards you will need EASA pilot papers also, which means you will need any EFIS signoffs IF they are a legal requirement – even if the FAA doesn’t need them.

I really have no idea about this (no personal need to know) but here in the UK it has often been claimed that if you do your stuff in a DA42 (G1000+FADEC) then you cannot fly an old piston twin (steam gauges + 6 engine levers). Actually you probably can’t fly a TB20!

And any discussion about avionics signoffs always leads to the same point: mandatory training for avionics. This is what happens in the commercial world, with Type Ratings. The new RHS in an A320 may not be able to hand fly it but he will know what the knobs do (mostly). You need to be clear on whether this is what you want for light GA. Obviously it would be “sensible” because so many people fly planes (mostly rented, or very low time pilots, IMHO) whose systems they don’t understand, and the problem will get worse as the fleet is slowly updated. But we already have so much regulation in GA which is making serious flying the province of only the most committed pilots, like the guy who wrote this

If you are interested in something you will always find an expert who will teach you.

If you look though someones logbook and see they have hundreds of hours in glass cockpit aeroplanes, then they should be automatically endorsed IMHO.

I agree.

But I suspect somebody with 500hrs behind his [whatever system] already knows what the knobs do. Even I know what most of the KLN94 knobs do

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

which means you will need any EFIS signoffs IF they are a legal requirement

It’s a pretty new thing, but if you look in the AMC and GM to the FCL (don’t you love the new rule system), it is actually listed as a separate class rating!

  • SEP (land)
  • SEP (land) with EFIS
    It also mentiones that if you switch from one to another, that differences training is required.

Surely there must be people by now that have the EFIS class rating in their license here? Do they also have the “normal” class rating in there (you’d expect so).

Peter wrote:

then you cannot fly an old piston twin

I think you may be right… sounds a bit strange doesn’t it. If you did all your training on an EFIS, you’d require differences training to get the normal SEP (land) ?

Archie wrote:

It’s a pretty new thing, but if you look in the AMC and GM to the FCL (don’t you love the new rule system), it is actually listed as a separate class rating!

SEP (land)
SEP (land) with EFIS
It also mentiones that if you switch from one to another, that differences training is required.

If you’re referring to GM1 FCL.700, then you’re misinterpreting the table. SEP (land) with EFIS is not a separate class rating.

Section (a) starts by stating that the class ratings covered by the table are SEP/MEP sea/land.

The table then says that aircrafts “SEP (land)” and “SEP (land) with EFIS” are covered by the same class rating (SEP land), but that (as you say) differences training is required to go from one to the other.

If “SEP (land) with EFIS” was actually a separate class rating then, according to the table, so would

  • SEP (land) with variable pitch propellers
  • SEP (land) with retractable undercarriage
  • SEP (land) with turbo or super charged engines
  • SEP (land) with cabin pressurisation
  • SEP (land) with tail wheels
  • SEP (land) with SLPC

Not even the old EASA regime would be crazy enough to impose such a scheme!

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Flyer59,

Regarding your comment about why not scrap all ratings including Aerobatics (sorry but can’t quote), I think this is an interesting point in this discussion.

Until recently Aerobatics didn’t require any rating or training. (I’ve a sneeking suspission that someone mentioned previously that it did in Germany, but not for the vast majority of Europe). Yet the ground wasn’t littered with crashed aircraft from people going out and trying it themselves and crashing.

So obviously pilots were sensible enough in the vast majority of cases, to get training as needed.

I think that there is little doubt that most would do the same with EFIS.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

There still is an aerobatic rating in Germany, and I think it makes sense. I for one have it – and I would never dare (nor recommend) to try aerobatics without good instruction.

I don’t see the problem: The best way to learn something new and complicated like EFIS (and I am sure it is a challenge for many pilots who have flown traditional instruments for many years) is to get qualified instruction. While it is not easy to find a qualified CFI – it is possible.

From the CAA AMC/GM in CAP804:

For the purposes of this requirement, an EFIS display requiring differences training is
an electronic presentation of the primary flight instruments that presents gyroscopic
instrument, pressure instrument and navigation information that is used by the pilot as
a primary reference for control of the aircraft in flight.

Pilots converting to an EFIS equipped aeroplane for the first time, within the Single
Engine Piston Class Rating, are required to complete differences training to the
satisfaction of an appropriately qualified Class or Instrument Rating Instructor or Flight
Instructor. Those pilots with logbook evidence to show that they have been operating
these aircraft as pilot in command, prior to September 9th 2010, the issue date of an
AIC on the topic, are exempt from this requirement

Now retired from forums best wishes
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