I trained and took my checkride in an all glass cockpit, twin Dynon Skyviews and Garmin 796 GPS/WAAS. I did fly a few times in planes with steams but had no trouble completing PPL training with the Dynons. I just ordered a new Cirrus SR22T and will take transition training for the G1000/perspective system in March. I have started to look at the pilot guide for the G1000/perspective and see few differences so far.
I don’t think anyone disputes that
The theme of this thread is different. It is the apparent suggestion that when things start to go badly wrong, a pilot with some standard level of training is likely to “lose the plot” sooner than he might have done with the old dials.
The other party are the pilots who do NOT have glass cockpits, yet. For some reason unknown to me they are highly sceptical and try to find all kinds of arguments against the new technologies, and they say they don’t need any of that stuff. Digital autopilots with ESP, precise Flight Directors and features normally only found on jets, synthetic vision, integrated wind and TAS … I hear it all the time that real pilots don’t need that stuff, or actually, I READ it, becasue i don’t spend any time in airport bars (;-))
I can inform you, Flyer59, that if I wanted a brand new fully loaded SR22T, I could buy one tomorrow 
Or a used TBM700, but Socata want $400k to put a G1000 in… So I have no axe to grind in this discussion.
a pilot with some standard level of training is likely to “lose the plot” sooner than he might have done with the old dials.
I cannot imagine that. The glass panel airplanes have the better autopilots (at least all the newer versions) and I can see no reason why a pilot would “lose it” sooner. I think the contrary is true. And I think the main reason why there’s many glass cockpit airplanes in the accident statistics is that the percentage of those planes doing ambitious long cross country flights through weather and ice is high. I think it’s a fact that SR22s fly much more ambitious missions on average than DA40s. That’s what they are made for.
The first assumption above is that "glass " and automation are the same thing but to understand the issue you have to split the discussion into display and automation issues.
Early B737-300 aircraft did not have glass indication but from an automation and navigation perspective they had almost as much functionality as the later glass equipped aircraft.
The issue with glass displays is the volume of information avalable and correctly selecting and identifying the source of the displayed information.
The issue with automation is making sure that the auto flight system is doing what you wanted, this requires very close attention to the flight mode annunciation.
Training and discipline are the key to keeping on top of these systems as any intention to mode changes are likely to result in the aircraft flying precicly to an unknown point.
The Children of the magenta video ( linked above ) is a very clear about the appropriate application of automation but it assumes the user understands the system mode that they have selected ( even if it is not the best for the situation ) but from my personal experience as an instructor I find a lot of private pilots don’t understand even the basic autopilot modes and flight plan modes of IFR GPS units so it is easy to see how reliance on such technology is likely to go badly wrong even in the low pressure environment of en- route navigation, use of systems with approach modes when the pilot is not well trained and in practice is only going to end one way……… And that won’t be good !
I am emailing the magazine to ask for the references to those studies mentioned.
The Children of Magenta video is a classic, and it’s relevance will remain because almost no pilot – and in that I include its context: the airlines – is capable of understanding every detail of the systems architecture, so when things start to go wrong the pilot, who is unable to analyse the problem from first principles, needs to be able to downgrade to basics.
Early B737-300 aircraft did not have glass indication but from an automation and navigation perspective they had almost as much functionality as the later glass equipped aircraft.
I am sure that is true for any GA avionics too. Once you have LPV, nothing gives you anything really extra. The new stuff can do more fancy stuff but none of it is actually required.
Honestly I think an increase in glass and automation in GA is unrelated to fatalities. If anything I think automation and glass improves SA and saves lives. There are both good and bad pilots of both types of aircraft. It is pure nostalgia to think otherwise.
Older aircraft are great. But we have a habit of harking back to the good old days when pilots with few instruments flew the skies unbothered by modern worries. We ignore the masses of pilot fatalities that ensued due to navigation, weather and mechanical unreliability.
I am sure that is true for any GA avionics too. Once you have LPV, nothing gives you anything really extra. The new stuff can do more fancy stuff but none of it is actually required.
We aren’t discussing required. We are discussing good to have. Better autopilots, better systems all help. They don’t remove all risk but they make flying easier and safer. You can choose not to have it but that doesn’t make it less helpful.
Better equipment is undoubtedly going to reduce the risks to those who have the skill and discipline to use it wisely…………… Those who lack the skill or discipline to do so will just manage to become high tech accident statistics instead of just the accident statistics they would have become in the past.
Flyer59 wrote:
I made my IFR in 2002. Never have I been given the instruction to “intercept a radial”. I could do it, no problem – but it never happened.
Maybe not an ATC instruction, but surely you will have flown SIDs or missed approaches where you had to intercept a radial?
I had read that 2007 study before. It is too old now to say anything meaningful about aircraft like the Cirrus today. From 2013 onwards the Cirrus became the SEP with the lowest fatal accident rate due to better training and because of COPA’S safety initiative. The other one I have to read … when I have the time.
