There are very few aircraft in production that come with a carbureted engine today. The Robinson and Guimbal helicopters come to mind, there it’s intentional because of safety.
What those “carbs are crap I wouldn’t fly an aircraft with it even if it was free” advocates totally forget is that fuel injection as found in aircraft engines has its problems, too. I have witnessed clogged injectors way too often to say that FI is unconditionally the better solution. Just a few weeks ago we had a forum member do an emergency landing at a very remote location because of a clogged injector nozzle.
Carbs are very much trouble free and the icing danger is highly installation specific. My aircraft is a very odd beast — turbocharged with a carburetor. I have a carb temp gauge and a temp range alarm but I never get in that temperature range and never had icing. Other airplanes have icing all the time. It’s something you have to deal with and it can be dealt with. I also have cowl flaps to operate, a prop lever, mixture lever, gear handle, alternate air, etc. Really just a minor aspect if it’s carb or FI. I don’t design my own aircraft, I bought something that is on the market. I don’t see the carb as a plus but it really doesn’t make the aircraft worse.
that any innovation which simplifies the task is treated with derision as “not something a real pilot would do”
You are sure you don’t just misinterpret what is being said? My brother in law own and sails Viking ships and other wooden boats. Large hand crafted beast, replicas made of wood and rope, more than 1000 year old technology. They sail to England, some even sail to the USA with these ships. He could very well say that “real sailors” sail Viking ships, but what he means is that the experience you get when sailing such a ship is like nothing you will get in a modern sail boat. It’s the same with an old Cub compared with a modern aircraft. The fabric, hand propping, the tail wheel, few and basic instruments, the history, the handling makes flying a vintage Cub a very different “down to basic and historical” experience than flying a Diamond. I could even argue that the only “real pilots” are those who build their own aircraft, but I will wait a bit more until mine is flyable 
If you like aircraft and flying, the only important thing is to fix, them, build them, fly them. It doesn’t really matter what you fly.
Anyway, in my opinion “safety” has very little to do with this. Unless we sit in the front seats of a B737 or similar, what we should focus on is how to handle the risk and find out how much risk we are willing to accept and what we can do to reduce the risk to a level we can accept.
As a general rule, airline pilots seem to fly Piper Cubs on the weekend and computer programmers seem to like glass cockpit IMC tourers. I’d like one of each.
computer programmers seem to like glass cockpit IMC tourers.
I must confess to being a confirmation of your rule.
…a redundant dual INS, DME-DME, panel…not…
…normally indicates 90mph, but as far from transonic as you can possibly be…
As a general rule, airline pilots seem to fly Piper Cubs on the weekend and computer programmers seem to like glass cockpit IMC tourers. I’d like one of each.
I agree with that very much, but I think it’s for different reasons.
Airline pilots are normally sick of IFR because they do it all day long, often in a job which is far less pleasant than the supposed glamour in the 1960s.
Computer programmers like well equipped planes because they tend to know how easily humans screw up, and they want lots of equipment to prevent it happening
The problem with the term “real pilots” is that by definition it implies that everyone else isn’t. This debate has been going on since the Wrights. How much should the design of aeroplanes make flying easy? I’m currently reading Digital Apollo about the space program and one of the issues is how much human input there should be in spaceflight, and in flight generally.
It’s quite amazing – it appears some pilots (maybe the non-IT/Engineering types!) actually want aircraft designed to bite them if they make a mistake.
I for one, want to fly without an instructor on board but if I screw up, I won’t mind a gentle nudge from an invisible one so I don’t visit a $100 funeral…
p.s. is it possible that the higher adaption rate of digital displays and so forth is among IT professionals as they have a greater understanding of how they work? I know my father would prefer steam, he’d freak out if he was dependent operating a computer to keep him alive!
I found one, a “real pilot”
Now I know why I bought headsets with Bluetooth like the guy in the video – so I can be a “real pilot” too… Must try it out immediately.
Other than IFR overload, airline pilots like simple light aircraft because, as a group, they so often suffer from having snakes in their pockets 
Conversely, IT guys focus on aircraft with glass panels because their awareness of centuries of technology outside of IT is expanding slowly, not quickly, notwithstanding the value of glass panels!
