An American Airlines flight crashed because the FMS allowed the pilot to enter a waypoint that was far away and beyond a mountain from the aircraft’s present position.
Excuse me, but that is utter rubbish [[blödsinn]]. The flight did not crash because the FMS allowed entering whatever. The flight crashed because the pilot(s) followed the FMS blindly, after having fed it with incorrect/insufficient data. Had there been no FMS at all, the pilot(s) might well have seen and respected the need of correct navigation, using whatever tools available.
I so hate this reversal of vocabulary, which really is a reversal of logic. Big Brother, sort of. The FMS was not the root cause of the sad accident, far less was its implementation or mode of operation. The root cause was with the flight deck crew.
Of course, we all know there is no way to set up a perfect pilot. We also know there is no way to set up a perfect machine. Life in general, and flying more particularly, are matters of compromise. Compromises go wrong, sometimes.
Stephan – getting back to basics, you may be over-estimating how little avionics functionality is actually required for European IFR.
The first panel pic here is all you need (the centre stack i.e. 1990s KLN94/KMD550).
IFR flying isn’t a matter of programming some complicated navigation system.
Have a look at some of my IFR trip writeups here. The required functionality is really very simple. On the US forums (and the Cirrus forum is going to be mostly US based) people talk about all kinds of esoteric stuff like intercepting airways, but this just doesn’t happen in Europe, where stuff is very simple – probably because most commercial operators (some 99% of the traffic at any time) don’t have any fancy capability themselves. They depart on a SID, get radar vectors pretty quick, fly a filed route (with shortcuts asked for all the time), fly a STAR (usually not flown because you get radar vectors to the ILS) and fly the IAP (usually an ILS, sometimes a nonprecision approach which is flown using the FMS in the same way you would fly it using a GPS).
The USA has tens of times more GA traffic activity than Europe, whereas the European system has to cater for the lowest common denominator, which includes some African cargo airline operating 1960s Tupolevs…
It’s nice to get the latest eye candy, and don’t get me wrong, I am financially perfectly capable of taking my TB20 and tomorrow dropping it off at Europe’s most expensive (and probably most arrogant…) avionics shop for a high five figure rip-it-all-out and refit with 2xG600. But I choose to not waste my money buying a load of downtime and zero new mission capability.
In due course we may need PRNAV (RNAV1) which all new kit can obtain, and the individual may decide that GPS/LPV approaches are sufficiently operationally relevant that he/she can choose to throw some money at getting that too. But all current-model kit can do all this – you just need to sort out the paperwork to make yourself technically legal, which may be highly nontrivial.
But if you want to fly on business the thing to spend money on is stuff that enhances your despatch rate, which will be a turbo with full TKS, and that is all you can get in an SR22. To get a despatch rate into the high 90s% you need a high altitude (FL250 plus) capability, with pressurisation to make it routine, radar, and the entry level there is a PA46, or preferably the Jetprop conversion as the next step.
The USA has tens of times more GA traffic activity than Europe, whereas the European system has to cater for the lowest common denominator, which includes some African cargo airline operating 1960s Tupolevs…
Noise regulations in Europe have banned virtually all noisy aircraft years ago whereas in the US you can still fly them. Not so much Tupolevs for historical reasons but plenty of MD-11s that cannot be operated in Europe. The landing fee for those is about the hull value. In addition to that, Europe has a no-fly list for airlines with poor safety record.
Also Europe mandates BRNAV as minimum equipment for IFR, even P-RNAV in some terminal areas whereas you can do legal IFR in the US with just a VOR, no GPS.
The holding feature is nice but not important. Only IR students believe that holdings are difficult and a big thing, in real life they are neither. Once you get the hang of it, you fly them easily with just a GPS and the heading pointer. Enroute holdings are virtually non existent and Europe does not have this US phraseology where they describe an enroute holding in a very complicated manner. The only thing you have to know about a holding is where the holding side is and what the holding fix is, for the rest you can do whatever you like, fly any pattern you want.
@Jan are you member of the AAAA (American Association Against Acronym Abuse)?
Other than most pilots here I DO think that the avionics are an important part of a good IFR touring airplane. While I am well aware that you can safely fly IFR with the old steam gauges and without a glass cockpit there are a couple of factors that make IFR flight, especially in IMC much easier for the not so experienced IFR pilot – ME.
- the width of +20 cm of the Attitude Indicator makes attitude flying in clouds much easier and safer
- the integration of data like engine data, wind information, route etc. in the PFD are a big help especially in approaches
- Active geo-referenced IFR charts on the MFD give a maximum of situational awareness. It is practically impossible to do a 180 degree mistake etc
- highly integrated autopilots with integrated envelope protection make autopilot flight safer
- flight directors of the digital autopilots have a level of precision unknown to analogue FDs
- integrated Traffic, Stormscope, Terrain and sometimes even satellite weather data on the MFD add a lot of safety
- digital engine instruments, lean assistants, trend indicators, temp warnings etc etc support the pilot im a useful way
…. and that’s not even all points.
All the modern glass cockpits share most of these features. in reality i do not see a point though in buying the latest version of the plane just because it has a later version of the glass cockpit. Yes, G1000/Perspective is a bit more integrated , and yes, GTN650s are simpler than the 430…. but are these criteria that would make me, a +100 h/Year amateur IFR pilot spend €150.000 more for the SAME plane? I would not. I tested the SR22 with both cockpits before i bought my plane and while i could have bought the newer version – i really do not see the point, for me. I know that I will probably never in my flying carreer need more than my Avidyne Entegra with then DFC90 i bought right away when buying the plane. I will never get into the position that a flight will not be possible because i didn’t have synthetic vision, i am pretty sure about this one.
Of course, if money was no factor at all, i’d always buy the newest generation. I am not in that position either, and if I was I’d buy a Cessna Mustang for my family anyway.
In short: Yes, if i can choose, then today the glass cockpit version of the same plane is the much better plane. But would i rather have a 200 hp SR20 with glass cockpit than a 310 hp SR22 with steam gauges + MFD…? No way! (And i could always put in an Aspen….)
Achim, i fly holdings with the OBS feature of the 430!
But if you want to fly on business the thing to spend money on is stuff that enhances your despatch rate, which will be a turbo with full TKS, and that is all you can get in an SR22. To get a despatch rate into the high 90s% you need a high altitude (FL250 plus) capability, with pressurisation to make it routine, radar, and the entry level there is a PA46, or preferably the Jetprop conversion as the next step.
That was the reason for my question. If it really is about using it for high reliability personal transportation then in the piston world I think it is hard to go past a Mirage. I really do like glass and would not go back to steam gauges but would take an Avidyne Entegra Mirage with DFC90 and GTN650s (as i had) over a Cirrus with G1000 any day. Pressurisation, boots, speed and ceiling are critical. All the glass systems are good enough for efficient IFR flight.
Which is why a focus on electronics is not really proportionate. Any modern glass system will allow you to fly excellent IFR if you are a good current pilot. The user interfaces are all different but fine.
And I fly holds with the OBS on G1000 alexis!
i fly holdings with the OBS feature of the 430!
So do I but I remember well how scared I was about holdings when I was an IR student. One was taught to get the wind, apply some 2x wind correction angle and add or subtract some time from the leg, time the inbound leg, calculate the holding entry based on the exact interception angle, etc. All that complex stuff.
When I had my IR exam, I tried to do the same for the hold but got “So you want to to impress me with your knowledge of aviation history? Why don’t you try to impress me by demonstrating that you actually know how to use the GNS430 and forget about all that wind correction crap?”. Back then I also thought that the avionics suite should help me with holdings.
Today I just roughly estimate how I will approach the holding fix, choose an entry that looks right to me (no interception angle maths), setup the inbound course with OBS and just use the heading bug the circle the airplane more or less round the track. Stay on the holding side and don’t lose track of the holding fix and all is fine. It is impossible for more than one aircraft to be in the same holding at the same altitude and your actual track does not matter at all.
Before you have your IR and made some experience, it is very difficult to judge what is important to have in your airplane. I made the very mistake. Best would be to purchase the aircraft after you’ve gained some experience flying your IFR missions.
Haha, exactly, Achim!
I remember how I was sweating in that DAMN Frasca simulator (an incredible piece of mechanical engineering) trying to learn the holdings and especially the simulator test with the LBA examiner was really stressful …with one new command every minute.
We did the 2x WCA thing too, with the stopwatch at the “abeam radail” and so on … I think I already forgot how to do it. Now, when I did my first IFR practice flights with the first IFR plane i owned I simply overflew the fix, turned outbound and used OBS for the inbound course. …
Funny anecdote: When my friend Frank from TExas visited me some years ago (the former Jet instructor and AA 767Senior Captain) I asked him about the different entries and especially the NDB approach and looked at me, kind of amused, and asked if I really expected him to remember all that stuff, and that in the 767 he first of all flew two holdings in 18 years and if he had to he’d simply select it in the FMS and pressed enter and that I should “worry about different things than about 2 x WCA and all that crap”
We did the 2x WCA thing too…
3 times it is (because during the one minute outbound leg, you have to compensate for the drift of the outbound and inbound turns as well – so you have one minute to compensate for three minutes, therefore the factor three). I know because we still instruct it the old fashioned way :-) Flying holdings is an excellent exercise for students, because of the multitasking involved. Flying the aeroplane with a turn every minute, looking at speed, timing and performing the approach briefing while doing all that really saturates them.
…he first of all flew two holdings in 18 years
That’s not so in Europe. I have to fly holdings (training and checkrides apart) about two or three times per year. The last one in Milan Linate over the outer marker during the ILS approach because the runway was still occupied… If you get such an instruction, you really must know what to do, because there is no time to program it into the FMS at that stage.
And my personal holding debacle goes like that: Shortly before our son was born (he will be 15 this year) I sort of panicked and wanted to swap my long-term self-employment for a more secure position as a fully employed pilot. I applied for a post with one of the Lufthansa daughters (for LH itself I was already too old) and managed to pass the much feared theory and aptitude test (“DLR test”) without much preparation. So I went to the simulator screening with no preparation at all (“after all, I already passed the most difficult part and flying that sim can not be so difficult…”). They sat me in an AVRO (Bae 146) full motion simulator, for me the first time in such a simulator, the first time in a jet, the first time in front of a glass cockpit, the first time having to fly “pitch and power” and synchronizing four engine levers… In the end (45 sweaty minutes later, 40 of which I was feeling as lost in an aeroplane as I never was before or afterwards), they failed me because I had flown my holdings “too wobbly” and with the wrong corrections applied. But the examiner praised my final NDB apprach (raw data, hand flown, no flight director or anything – so as difficult as it can get) – something I’m still a little proud of – but it was not sufficient to compensate for the bad holdings. So it can pay to fly good holdings after all!
Hi,
I was taught a bit different: Depending on the angle of the wind to the outbound course there was a factor …1,2 or 3 for the WCA … But I have to check the details. Forgot! My friend flew DFW to Frankfurt for 18 years for AA, probably not many holdings at EDDF …
Interesting carreer, what next. What do you fly now?
