Glass Cockpit or Traditional Gauges for Primary Training? Paul from Ask A CFI.com answered a great question from someone contemplating flight training in a airplane equipped with a G1000 cockpit versus an airplane equipped with traditional mechanical gauges. He answered by saying that the G1000 can become a hindrance to training because “the training now becomes focused on learning the tool and not obtaining the objective of the actual flight lesson.” He ends by commenting that “you just can’t put a price tag on learning the basics of flying (just ask Capt. Sullenberger).” Good advice. The post has already elicited several interesting responses from readers that are well worth reading.
IFR Training Blog. On another training note, the TangoZulu blog has an ongoing series of posts about IFR training (the owner of the blog is a Washington DC based pilot and aircraft owner) and the Plastic Pilot blog has conveniently posted links to all of the specific IFR training posts. The series contains very helpful and must read information for anyone contemplating IFR training.
G1000 PC Trainer V9.03. Meanwhile, Aviation Mentor has posted a quick but thorough review of G1000 PC Trainer V9.03. His concludes by saying that for US$24.95 (plus shipping), the simulator is a relatively inexpensive way to learn about the latest developments regarding the Garmin G1000.
Lightening Damage Pictures… On a correction note, the picture posted in last week’s Best of the Web that was supposed to be damage from a lightening strike and has appeared on other blogs was in fact a picture of damage caused by a cockpit fire (according to All Things Aviation). Apparently, the plane was on the ground and a fire started behind the pilot’s head. Either way, the potential threat posed by lightening is still something that pilots need to be aware of.
Strange but Interesting Aviation News. And finally on a fun note, the CrankyFlier is on vacation but special guest blogger Benet Wilson from Aviation Week has posted another strange but interesting aviation news post with links to the actual media accounts. Stories include commercial flights landing at the wrong airport (repeatedly) in the country of Georgia, a helicopter pilot who had his license revoked following a video tapped “incident” with a porn start while flying over San Diego, and a passenger who apparently REALLY needed to use the lavatory and ended up being arrested on an assault charge….
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Ironically, commenting on my own blog but John’s posted this interesting round up of articles on IFR flying and I wanted to add a thought. I learned basic instrument flying on a PA28 with traditional steam gauges. Then I transitioned to an SR20 with dials not a glass PFD when I started my full IR training a couple of years later. Oddly, as a result of this initial training, I found it quite hard to transition to a glass cockpit. Oddly, on my IR checkride my examiner said that I flew better when I was using the conventional standby instruments as ‘backups’ when he failed the PFD than when I was flying using the glass cockpit!